Category Archives: Birds
Kamloops Christmas Bird Count Results
Submitted by Rick Howie (Compiler) It was a blustery, snowy day on Dec. 21 , 2020 for our 41st annual Christmas Bird Count first started in 1979. The club had been doing a half day count for a few years prior to this but we made it a full day Audubon count in 1979.The temperatures in the valley bottom ranged from 0°C – 1°C under cloudy, snowy conditions with winds brisk throughout the day. Temperatures at higher elevations in the count circle were likely 2-3 degrees cooler.
Continue reading →All of Glenn Dreger’s Advent Calendar Photos
The 2019 Glenn Dreger advent calendar gallery of photos for your enjoyment. Click on each one to enlarge. And now some bonus photos. This post requires some additional work.
Continue reading →Ancient Insects Ate Dinosaur Feathers
The new paper presents the earliest known evidence of insects feeding on feathers, and the authors suggest that this type of parasite evolved during or before the middle of the Cretaceous period, which occurred 145–66 million years ago. Ancient lice ate dinosaur feathers, similar to how modern-day lice eat bird feathers, according to a study published yesterday (December 10) in Nature Communications. Researchers led by Taiping Gao and Dong Ren at Capital Normal University in China, discovered the insect on dinosaur feathers fossilized in 100-million-year-old amber collected in northern Myanmar. The … Continue reading →
Caretakers Needed For Our Local Important Bird Areas
Canada’s Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas Program is a science-based initiative to identify, conserve, and monitor a network of sites that provide essential habitat for Canada’s bird populations. Canada is part of a global network consisting of over 12,000 sites in 200 countries. There are about 600 sites in Canada and 83 in BC. There are two IBAs in our area. These are the South Thompson River IBA and the Douglas Lake Plateau IBA. Rick Howie has been the caretaker for the South Thompson River IBA for many years. The … Continue reading →
First Cape May Warbler Ever Seen In the Lower Mainland
Instead of spending time in Turks and Caicos or Barbados, this tiny yellow Cape May warbler has somehow ended up in Abbotsford, B.C. Bird photographer Nick Balachanoff says, to his understanding, it’s the first identified Cape May warbler in the Lower Mainland or Fraser Valley. See the full story
Continue reading →