After two great days in the valley-bottom it was time to hit the forest and what better excuse than that Princeton CBC? My Dad and I were joined by Kirk Safford and Chandra Wong for the day and we were assigned some great forest patches including the Curry Ranch, China Ridge, Swan Lake (frozen obviously), and some small areas up Hwy 5a. The story of the day was certainly the woodpeckers. Princeton boasts a wealth of pine-beetles (I like to look at it in a nice way!) and thus a wealth of beetle-eaters have moved in. In our area alone we counted 35 HAIRY WOODPECKERS, 14 DOWNY WOODPECKERS, 7 PILEATED WOODPECKERS, 8 NORTHERN FLICKERS, and 3 AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS!!! All three species of nuthatches were abundant as well, plus other great pine birds such as RED CROSSBILL, EVENING GROSBEAKS, BROWN CREEPERS, NORTHER PYGMY-OWL (poorly digiscoped), GRAY JAYS, NUTCRACKERS, and loads of RAVENS.
After today, my year's count sits at 88! As I write this on the 4th (in my parent's dining room in Penticton), it is dumping snow outside so perhaps this will be a good opportunity to send out some emails!
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