Brief birding excursion - White Lake - July 13, 2021

[Randy]

I finally got some time to get photos off my camera from the summer and process them! What a time-consuming venture! Anyway, in early July I went to Kelowna with my family. I snuck out for a couple hours one morning and drove to White Lake Road. I was hoping to find a sage thrasher here then drive to a slightly different spot nearby to try for grasshopper sparrow. I've seen sage thrasher before but grasshopper sparrow would have been a lifer.

I walked the road for a couple hours and struck out on sage thrasher but I picked up a grasshopper sparrow singing. I managed to locate it in the distance and confirm the ID with a photo. Terrible photo but I was happy to have a bit more magnification for confirmation since I didn't have my scope. Here's one of the photos (heavily cropped):



Always fun to see species I have not seen often. Here are some other photos:

Lazuli bunting:



Mountain bluebird:



Eastern kingbird:



Lark sparrow:




Here's my list for the morning:

California Quail 10
Mourning Dove 1
Red-naped Sapsucker 1
Northern Flicker 1
American Kestrel 1
Western Wood-Pewee 1
Say's Phoebe 2
Eastern Kingbird 2
American Crow 3
Mountain Bluebird 2
Veery 1
American Robin 1
Cedar Waxwing 4
American Goldfinch 2
Grasshopper Sparrow 1
Lark Sparrow 2
Vesper Sparrow 6
Western Meadowlark 8
Brewer's Blackbird 10
Yellow Warbler 1
Lazuli Bunting 1