Okanagan Vacation 2 - The Marathon
June 16th, 2011
No, not a literal marathon--well, there was a race going on in town (a Half Ironman), but that's not what I'm referring to. This was a birding marathon. I had booked a tour for our first full day with Great Horned Owl Eco-Tours. It was just me, Mike and the guide (Greg Byron). We spent twelve hours in all travelling to various avian hot spots around the Okanagan Valley, including riverbanks, arid regions, farmland, marshes and mountains. This trip netted me 15 lifers (new species) in all. Many of them I re-found on my own later in the trip, but a few--such as the rare, locally endangered Yellow-Breasted Chat--I probably could not have seen without help.
Two of the high points of my vacation occurred during this tour. One was watching a Northern Harrier and a Bald Eagle, perched on a field edge two fenceposts away from each other. Northern Harrier is a big raptor--it stands over a foot and a half tall--but next to the eagle, it looked tiny. Clearly it felt itself tiny, and felt more than a little defensive, because it repeatedly flew over to the eagle and took potshots at it. The eagle snapped at it when it got too close but otherwise seemed unfazed--very much the same sort of reaction I've seen in crows harassed by angry blackbirds. It was the harrier who gave up first and abandoned his post.
The other high point was finding two male/female pairs of Ruddy Ducks on a mountain pond. The Ruddy Duck is one of the strangest-looking ducks in North America, a bird that makes you wonder what Mother Nature was smoking when she came up with the color combination of brick red and electric blue. It's rare in Ottawa, findable, usually, in only a few specialized locations, such as the Moodie Drive quarry pond. When you do go there, they're usually so far away you have to use a spotting scope to see them.
But the ones we found were swimming close to shore and showed almost no fear of us. They even engaged in courtship displays while we watched: the males lifting their stiff, spiky tails, bobbing their heads and bills, making strange, bubbly sounds, and paddling furiously across the water.
I didn't bring a camera with me on the tour. But the very next day, Mike and I drove back to the pond, and this time I was armed and ready. They were still there!
1680x1050 wallpaper
Tail up in display:
June 16th, 2011
No, not a literal marathon--well, there was a race going on in town (a Half Ironman), but that's not what I'm referring to. This was a birding marathon. I had booked a tour for our first full day with Great Horned Owl Eco-Tours. It was just me, Mike and the guide (Greg Byron). We spent twelve hours in all travelling to various avian hot spots around the Okanagan Valley, including riverbanks, arid regions, farmland, marshes and mountains. This trip netted me 15 lifers (new species) in all. Many of them I re-found on my own later in the trip, but a few--such as the rare, locally endangered Yellow-Breasted Chat--I probably could not have seen without help.
Two of the high points of my vacation occurred during this tour. One was watching a Northern Harrier and a Bald Eagle, perched on a field edge two fenceposts away from each other. Northern Harrier is a big raptor--it stands over a foot and a half tall--but next to the eagle, it looked tiny. Clearly it felt itself tiny, and felt more than a little defensive, because it repeatedly flew over to the eagle and took potshots at it. The eagle snapped at it when it got too close but otherwise seemed unfazed--very much the same sort of reaction I've seen in crows harassed by angry blackbirds. It was the harrier who gave up first and abandoned his post.
The other high point was finding two male/female pairs of Ruddy Ducks on a mountain pond. The Ruddy Duck is one of the strangest-looking ducks in North America, a bird that makes you wonder what Mother Nature was smoking when she came up with the color combination of brick red and electric blue. It's rare in Ottawa, findable, usually, in only a few specialized locations, such as the Moodie Drive quarry pond. When you do go there, they're usually so far away you have to use a spotting scope to see them.
But the ones we found were swimming close to shore and showed almost no fear of us. They even engaged in courtship displays while we watched: the males lifting their stiff, spiky tails, bobbing their heads and bills, making strange, bubbly sounds, and paddling furiously across the water.
I didn't bring a camera with me on the tour. But the very next day, Mike and I drove back to the pond, and this time I was armed and ready. They were still there!
1680x1050 wallpaper
Tail up in display:
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