‘Lifer bird’: Rare bird spotted in South Okanagan

An avid South Okanagan birder recently got to see a swamp sparrow for the first time, a species of bird that is very rarely found in the region.

Oliver resident Les Dewar has been finding and photographing birds for almost two decades, and observed the swamp sparrow at the Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory earlier this month where a team was conducting an annual migration monitoring program.

“It was a ‘lifer bird’ for me, which means it’s the first time I’ve seen it,” he said. “We were all very excited when in was captured at the bird banding station, this year they caught two of them. They’re rare here, they should be further east.”

Every late summer to mid-October, a team of experts and volunteers at Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory just south of Okanagan Falls puts up nets to catch, band and count birds during migration time to collect data on bird health and species diversity.

Penticton resident David Bell is a contract ornithologist who works on the migration monitoring program.

“The swamp sparrow is a scarce migrant west of the Rockies,” he said in a message to iNFOnews.ca. “We have banded at least one individual in 14 of the 24 years of operation. This year we banded two, the second of which is in Les’s photo that he shared with you.”

This year the team banded 1,529 individual birds of 55 species at the station, a little below the long-term average of roughly 1,700. Through banding, a daily monitoring walk and daily observations on the site, 185 species were identified.

“It’s one of several stations around the province and part of a scientific community worldwide,” Dewar said. “The bands they put on these birds are all numbered and if anyone takes a photo of the birds somewhere else, they can go to a website and report it. That’s how they know where these birds migrate to.”

The experts know how to carefully hold the birds and put tiny bands on their legs. By measuring the wings and looking at feathers, they can tell how old the bird is.

“They were pointing out the different colouration in the feathers and the size when I was there,” Dewar said. “A lot of the birds are moulting right now. The young ones only moult part of their feather where the adults molt all of them over time. It’s fascinating.”

Dewar is signed up on an app called BC Rare Bird Alert where he is alerted to rare sightings. He said the bird banding area and Mission Creek in Kelowna are common places for rare bird findings.

“Another rare bird they had this year at the bird banding was a chestnut sided warbler, also an eastern bird. Why they show up all of a sudden in the South Okanagan, I have no answer to that question. We do get a lot of rare birds here.”

Dewar keeps a list of species he has seen that is well over 200 birds long. He said some birders travel the world and have several hundreds of species on their lists. He can now add swamp sparrow to his list.

“It’s a pretty bird with beautiful colours,” he said.

Swamp sparrows are found in wetlands from central Canada to the eastern United States, according to All About Birds. The most northeasterly range of their breeding grounds are located in BC east of the Rocky Mountains, while their migration routes are southeast of the province.