Stumblingpiper

Hello! Recognizing that I would be staying local this year I decided to try and have a BC Birding Big Year! I set my goal at 190 birds for the province. Since there are ~260 breeding birds that can be seen in BC without having to spend too much money for weird locations, I thought 190 was doable. Also, since I live in the Okanagan Valley (Kelowna), there is a great opportunity to see ~200 birds here … again, if the conditions and timing are right.

The year started off very well, and through the end of July, I’m up to 129 birds. I think I can hit my goal if three things happen: 1) I can make a trip to the Lower Mainland (near Vancouver), 2) I make a trip to Eastern BC (in the Kootenays), and 3) I collect a few more Alpine birds overall.

Here are five of my favorite birds so far this year … The first is this Nashville Warbler.

This is a first time bird for me — we were hiking on the High Rim Trail near Lake Country, BC … we heard several of them calling and were finally able to see it well enough to snap a few pictures. Lovely.

This was another new bird for me. We were camping near Mabel Lake earlier this summer and had stopped at a small recreation area — Shuswap Falls Recreation Site. There were quite a variety of birds here — this was one of a pair … lovely.

I was happy to see this little fellow — also near the High Rim Trail. He was in full mating display and it was easy to see his crest. I was happy he sat still for the minute or so I needed to focus. lol.

This was also a new bird for me — a Veery. Very similar in call and appearance as a Thrush. Beautiful vocalization — photographed along McCulloch Road leaving Kelowna. I found it funny that it was standing on one leg.

The final bird was another new one for me! The Northern Waterthrush. I almost confused it with a juvenile Robin, but that yellow color was too vibrant to ignore. A beautiful bird and very curious. We saw this near Browne Lake to the east of Kelowna.

Such a wonderful variety of birds … I’ve been very fortunate to add around 5 new birds to my “life list” pushing my total numbers up to 1,105. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the year!

Enjoy,

Stumblingpiper