My doctor told me that I should exercise more. Convenient to my house is Star Road, all 1.7 kilometres of it one way uphill. Star Road used to be a section of Silver Star Road, until the switchbacks that form about half its length were deemed too much of a nuisance for drivers racing to the ski slopes. This stretch of Silver Star Road was re-routed over Simmons Road leaving the switchbacks to the few people who live along them and to walkers like me. Star Road has become my grind. It gets me puffing everytime I walk it. And being a birder for life, I keep a bird list everytime I walk it.
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| Fig. 1 - Male Ring-necked Pheasant - one of the easiest birds to detect in spring along Star Road due to the males' loud crowing. All photos by Chris Siddle |
Star Road begins near B.X. Elementary School and climbs the gentle slope that leads to the much steeper switchbacks. It has a few houses on its north side, nothing special except that a couple of residents have young but tall Douglas-firs, always good to have around for raptors to perch atop or for Bohemian Waxwings to take refuge in between their short forays to feast on tree fruit. On the south side of the road is a large apple orchard that quail and pheasants pass through, but I'm not sure if any birds actually live among the apple trees. Occasionally a Varied Thrush or a few winter robins will try to eat old mushy apples and House FInches might sing around the branches of the fruit trees. There are lots of weeds around the orchard so it's a good buffer. Beyond the orchard is the canyon of B.X. Creek, the major creek in the northern parts of Vernon. A patchy riparian zone protects some stretches of the creek, a zone almost constantly under attack by locals especially contractors in search of gravel sources, but that's another story.
Year round, cool moist mountain air slips down B.X. canyon from Silver Star Mountain, creating a microclimate in which Western Redcedars thrive. There are two foot paths crossing B.X Creek now, the older heading upstream to B.X. Falls and a newer trail crossing the ravine at Star Road and heading south into the hobby farm country of Dixon Dam Road. The forest along B.X Creek contributes many of the interesting birds that eventually find their way across the orchard and along the hedges and through the weedy patches into my neighbourhood. Without the forest there would be fewer chances of seeing Great Horned Owls, Northern Pygmy-Owls, Red-tailed Hawks, Merlins, Hairy Woodpeckers, Townsend's Solitaires, Pine Siskins, Mountain Chickadees, Golden-crowned Kinglets etc.
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| Fig. 2 - Male Yellow-rumped "Audubon's" Warbler - a common migrant and uncommon summer resident along Star Rd. |
At the old horse ranch Star Road quickly increases its grade. It passes by the Grey Canal, once a very ambitious irrigation project that carried water from the high plateau on the east side of the Okanagan Valley to fruit farmers in Coldstream and north Vernon. Now the Gray Canal is a walking path that upon completion will enable a hiker to walk from the sunny slopes above Cypress Road in Coldstream, around the shoulder of Vernon Mountain, across the grasslands of the BX, across the valley at the north end of Swan Lake and down the Bella Vista range of hills to Okanagan Landing.
It's late winter. For the second day in a row fog has settled over the area. An American Crow caws from the schoolyard. In a few weeks two pairs of crows will nest in the shade trees where Star Road joins Silver Star Road. The parents are among the most cautious of birds. We have been living in the neighbourhood for almost 25 years, yet it has been only in the past three years that on hot days parent crows have brought their juveniles to the cool shade of the big Manitoba Maple that grows next door.
From late fall throughout the winter Common Ravens patrol the hillsides, and as winter becomes spring the crows are unfailing in rising swiftly to chase the ravens out of the area. Crows seem to know how rapacious their close relatives can be and at nest time take no chances. They chase first and don't ever ask questions. Great egg thieves themeselves, crows know what ravens are looking for in the spring.
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| Fig. 3 - When a Great Blue Heron occurs along Star Road, it is usually an adult flying to or from the 24th St. colony or a bird hunting mice in farm fields. |
Today fog shrouds the old orchard but close to its northern edge, just behind the ragged edge of snowberry bushes I come upon male California Quails calling "Chicago" to the cold world. Yes, spring is on its way.
A Song Sparrow perches several feet off the ground in a bare sapling as if to sing, but I haven't heard one sing yet this month. Any day now.
Juncos are beginning to get tuneful on those rare occasions when the sun penetrates the valley cloud. Still in their winter flocks, they pause from feeding to perch and sing pretty trills.
As I pass the old horse ranch opposite the beginning of the BX Creek trail, I realize that given two or three weeks of warm weather, a Say's Phoebe will return to take up a territory around the ranch's paddocks and outbuildings. I look forward to its slightly mournful song. A pair usually raises a single brood in a nest on a ledge in one of the old out buildings. The juvenile phoebes, looking fresh feathered and not as shy as their parents, swoop and fly along the fence lines bordering the road in late June
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| Fig. 4 - By April American Goldfinch males are quickly assuming their bright yellow spring plumage. |
Since I have been routinely huffed and puffed my way up Star Road the list of birds I have seen along the way has grown, but that's not the point of this essay. The exercise I get tones me up, settles my nerves, gives me a break from whatever I'm doing at home, but also allows me to know the neighbourhood birds better. Too often for me, birding involves driving to some place out of the neighbourhood. With Star Road I get to stay home, learn more about the area I live in and the birds I share the neighbourhood with. That's the real point.
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