On Friday night I joined Tanya Luszcz on her nocturnal owl survey. We started on the upper Carmi Road (east of Penticton), and climbed up past the Ellis Dam to the 201 Road junction then head south toward Rabbit Lake. It was quite snowy up there and the road has not been regularly plowed-- to avoid getting stuck we decided to just keep 'er moving and ended up by driving down Shuttleworth Creek to Okanagan Falls and then back up to Penticton on Hwy 97...
So anyways, the birds---
Historically this has been a very quiet route, but tonight changed that! We had a pair of BARRED OWLS just below the dam (an uncommon treat for us Okanaganers). Once on the 201 however, the real highlights came in-- We got out of the truck at one of our stops and immediately could hear something tooting... "Tanya are you hearing this?? BOREAL OWL!!!" Yes indeed, a male Boreal Owl was singing only a hundred meters or so off the road. After the point count was done, I whistled it in and it posed on a pine sapling, offering Tanya great 'lifer'-views. Unfortunately it flew off JUST as I got the camera out. All I could get was this video recording of it singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEJDB6OMCNY
We continued along and got out at our next stop and whatya know-- another Boreal Owl is singing! A GREAT HORNED OWL also hooted away in the distance for our last owl of the night-- awesome!
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