Okanagan Birding

[Chris]

I left Friday after work and spent Saturday and a little bit of Sunday morning birding in the Osoyoos area.

Friday on the drive to Osoyoos I saw about 80 Sandhill Cranes flying over Spotted Lake.

Road 22 was the first stop on Saturday morning. One of my favorite areas to birdwatch.

This Great Horned Owl was a nice surprise



A lot of Common Mergansers were present



Quail were abundant but this was the best photo I could manage



Vaseux Lake and White Lake were quiet. The road past the Vaseux cliffs was fairly active. I saw three Townsend's Solitaries and three Horned Larks. Was also nice to get fairly good views of Pygmy Nuthatches.

In the afternoon we went to Kettle River Provincial Park just north of Rock Creek. This is my second time here and it's an awesome location. All three species of nuthatches were seen and quite a lot of Crossbills.

This morning, a visit to Haynes Lease was very productive. There were 12 Chukar, 3 Canyon Wren, and 2 Rock Wren. I thought the Rock Wren would have been gone by now.

A distant photo of a few of the Chukar.

[imperialbirders]

Hi Chris
We were visiting the area from September 20 to 26 and saw the Sandhill Cranes flying south on at least three days during our stay. On two days we saw 4 or 5 groups in V formation arrive over Osoyoos Lake. Suddenly they would break the V formations, join and swirl in a large group and then resume their V formations and carry on to the south. We thought this to be an odd phenomenon.
Great photos.
Thanks

Mike

[Chris]

Mike, I didn't see that while I was in the Okanagan this time but when I was in the Peace region I did see larger flocks of cranes do that occasionally. Not sure if they might want to land but change their mind and then continue.