If you're looking for new places to bird, consider exploring?the vast Interior Plateau of British Columbia. We discovered a small part of it last September and I just knew the birds would be there in spring. And they were! Big time! This vast area could rival Minnesota's claim to being?"the land of 10,000 lakes," and?it's all alive with?birds.??

Breeding birds filled just about every wetland or reasonable facsimile that we came across between Williams Lake and Bella Coola. One small wetland west of Redstone had nesting Canvasbacks, Ring-necked Ducks, Cinnamon and Blue-winged?Teal, Wilson's Phalaropes, Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, Pied-billed Grebes, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and Black Terns.

Other ponds and?lakes hosted grebes, loons, pelicans, Bonaparte's Gulls, and goldeneyes, to name but a few.? Across the expanse of sparsely-settled land, we saw Western and Mountain Bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks,?Bald and Golden Eagles, Ospreys, and?kestrels, and the woodlands were filled with warblers, crossbills, flycatchers, swallows, and kinglets, and more Chipping Sparrows than I've seen anywhere.

Our cabin was right on Anahim Lake and we went to sleep and awoke to loon choruses. At 4:30 on one early- morning start, I heard Great Gray Owls and bitterns calling. Hard to beat that kind of wake-up?music.
This area is similar in many ways to eastern Washington, but infinitely less-populated and a bit more of a drive to get there.?If you'd like more info about where?we went and what we saw, e-mail me directly.

We observed many other species and, lest I forget, 7 bears,?1 wolf, and?1 coyote.

Cheers,
Joe Meche
Back home in Bellingham?