Back from the Okanagan
June 13th, 2011
We're back, and had a wonderful time on our vacation. Travel went without a
hitch, B&B's were both excellent, we spent large swaths of our days exploring
and nature-watching, and my triplist is, well, epic.
I have many photos to sort through. Eventually I'll be posting a full
pictorial account of our adventures. But for now,
My 10 favorite things in the south Okanagan:
- Driving up snow-capped mountains. Driving up all the way to the snow on
Mount Kobau, where the landscape is dominated by immensely tall firs and
spruces, and the haunting song of the Hermit Thrush filters down from the
treetops.
- Watching the courtship shenanigans of Ruddy Ducks.
- The way the Mule Deer bound across the slopes, so light-footed, you'd think
someone had filled them with helium.
- The western corvids (crow relatives). Seeing my first magpie, my first Clark's
Nutcracker, my first Steller's Jay. Above all the magpies, the gorgeous,
intelligent, dragonfly-shaped magpies.
- Eating centimeter-thick bacon and a cheese-laden frittata big enough to fill a
casserole dish at the splendiferous Elm Tree Farm B&B.
- The breathtaking vista of lush orchards, vineyards, mountains and lake from Brin de Soleil B&B.
- A nearly 2-foot-tall Northern Harrier looking as small as a sparrow--because
he was perched beside a Bald Eagle! The fight that ensued between David and
Goliath.
- The oh-my-god-cute California Quail. Stalking one through the farmyard at ETF.
Catching it by surprise.
- Watching and listening to the courtship of Common Nighthawks whirling high
above us in the mountains. I had read that courting nighthawks do aerial
dives, creating a whooshing sound with their wings. I didn't realize that the
sound is like a tiny sports car zooming down a tiny highway two inches away
from your ear.
- The warm, trusting and generous locals.
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Vacation ho
June 3rd, 2011
On Saturday my husband and I are off to the south Okanagan. We return on the
12th. There I'll be, of course, birding my little heart out, lifelisting all
sorts of western birds that I've never had the opportunity to see before. (I'm
particularly looking forward to magpies.) There will also be hiking, canoeing,
swimming, dining, and, for Michael at least, wine-tasting.
I was originally planning a long, detailed post about this vacation and what
we expect to do and see. But time's run out, so I'll just have to tell you all
about it upon our return!
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Encounter
June 2nd, 2011
I was on trail 24 of Stony Swamp when a coyote walked right out on the path.
He crossed over and disappeared into the woods.
...after pausing to give me a long, speculative, slightly unsettling look!
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Liftoff
June 1st, 2011
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All For Show
May 31st, 2011
I was near the parking lot at Jack Pine Trail when I encountered this
beautiful and fierce-looking insect:
Keep in mind I don't have a macro lens. This isn't a magnification of some
tiny mite. It was over an inch long. It was creeping on an old,
lichen-encrusted stump and adjacent rock, and I went crazy trying to get a
good, sharp and well-lit photo, firing the shutter repeatedly everytime it
went into a patch of sunlight.
When it left the stump and flew towards me, I stood stock-still, because
honestly, who wants to tangle with something that looks like that? I regret it
now because my subject then flew off while I wasn't looking.
Come to find out (thanks to Christine Hanrahan, a local expert) it's a
harmless cranefly! Genus ctenophora, likely
ctenophora
dorsalis, a wasp mimic. That long, pointed, upcurved tail, by which I
feared getting stung, was nothing but an ovipositor. Which means it was a
female, and given where she was and how she was behaving, I likely caught her
in the process of laying eggs, or at least, searching for a place to lay eggs.
I never got quite the shot I wanted, so I hope to cross paths with this species
again someday.
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Common Yellowthroat at Jack Pine Trail
May 30th, 2011
The
Common
Yellowthroat is a common breeding warbler in Ottawa's marshes and met
meadows. Its habit of skulking in deep brush and tall cattails makes it
difficult to observe. However, yellowthroats get quite curious about intruders
into their territory, and are responsive to
pishing. You can sometimes get
good views as they hop around trying to figure out what you are and what
you're up to.
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Chestnut-Sided Warbler
May 11th, 2011
The striking
Chestnut-Sided
Warbler is a bird of young growth--old abandoned farmland, for instance,
and other scrubby habitats. This one was in the fields south of the airport.
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Spring Oriole
May 8th, 2011
Baltimore
Orioles and
Gray
Catbirds are back.
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Fortissimo
May 7th, 2011
Mud Lake's breeding
Yellow Warblers are
back, and singing their hearts out!
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Bufflehead
May 4th, 2011
This fellow swam by on the river while I was busily photographing the parula.
It was my first opportunity to photograph a
Bufflehead from anything
like a reasonable distance, so I took it!
The Bufflehead is a very small diving duck, closely related to the goldeneyes.
It is a primarily boreal species. Its small size is an adaptation to the size
of its preferred nesting location: old
Northern Flicker
holes. As with Wood Ducks, the new ducklings will crawl out of the nest hole
and jump, sometimes from many meters up, land on the forest floor and survive
the fall (somehow!), and follow their mother to water.
The male Bufflehead's claim to fame is the beautiful rainbow irridescence of
his head plumage, visible only in good light.
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