As the BC Bird Trail expands throughout the province, we wanted to shine a light on the people on the ground in these communities. Learn more about the bird-watching experiences in these destinations through the eyes of the experienced locals with our BC Birders profile series.
Kalin Ocaña is a conservationist, back-country hiker, and birding guide, as well as director of the Central Okanagan Land Trust and UBCO Geography student.
Growing up close to Rose Valley Regional Park in West Kelowna made it easy for Kalin to get into birds. He was always interested in animals. One of his early memories, when he was three or four years old, is of a violet-green swallow hitting the window. Kalin remembers studying it for a while, picking it up, and watching it take flight from his hands.
Bird watching is both a personal and professional pastime for Kalin. He is a park interpreter for the Regional District of Central Okanagan, a birding guide, and has worked as a field biologist for Birds Canada. Kalin also participates in many local bird counts and is a frequent contributor to citizen science projects like eBird.
“I’ve always been super into birds—my first word was ‘quack.’”
Kalin Ocaña
For people new to birding, Kalin recommends picking up a field guide to birds, as local as possible, or simply exploring the Central Okanagan eBird page. The ‘illustrated checklist’ is a great tool for familiarizing yourself with local species. Robert Lake Regional Park has many wetland birds, especially in the spring. From early April to May, there are yellow-headed blackbirds, ruddy ducks, and other exciting, easy-to-spot birds, even without quality binoculars. The mouth of Mission Creek is an excellent spot for shorebirds and gulls, especially from August to September. To see western grassland and forest birds, “you can drive up Beaver Lake Road starting at grasslands and watch the forest type and bird species shift as you gain elevation.”
Kalin recognizes that many people enjoy using Merlin, which is “phenomenal for getting a sense of what is around you,” However, he is careful to advise that because Merlin uses sonograms, it cannot be 100% accurate. Many birds make nearly identical calls or even mimic each other.
“The binoculars with the best warranty” is Kalin’s response to what binoculars he uses, as he is “always breaking them.” He prefers Zeiss and Vortex binoculars with their unlimited warranty—and has sent them back at least five times.
Kalin lives in Westbank and has a few secret spots where he likes bird watching, but attests that “anywhere with some good brushy cover is a good spot to look for birds. Keep an eye out near native trees like cottonwood and water birch—they support a lot of insects, so that’s where you will spot warblers travelling in mixed flocks with chickadees and kinglets.” The Maude Roxby Wetland Boardwalk is a highly accessible birding location that can be a promising spot during migration, April to May and August to mid-October. Birds spotted here include various species of ducks, gulls, and songbirds.
The weather is a primary consideration for Kalin when bird-watching. In the summer, many birds are singing on their nesting grounds early in the morning. But, during migration, you want to watch the winds. Most birds migrate at night, so if it’s fall and “there’s a breeze coming from the north during the night; the next morning will be a great time to bird.”
One of the wildest things Kalin witnessed while birding took place while guiding in Rose Valley early in the morning, a clash between two of the fiercest birds in the avian world. A female Peregrine falcon was “super mad, freaking out, and it flew down and landed on top of this willow.” Upon closer inspection, Kalin noticed a very agitated great-horned owl in the tree below. Owls are known to eat the young of other birds, even raptors, and this falcon was having none of it. “Owls have sensitive ears, so the falcon shrieked at him for around thirty minutes until he couldn’t take it anymore. Eventually, the owl tried to escape the deafening screams, but before he could clear 3 meters, the falcon dropped like a stone and punched him in the back, killing the owl on impact.”
As a “regional lister,” Kalin has recorded 295 bird species in the Central Okanagan as of writing. He notes that Kelowna’s top birder, Chris Charlesworth has seen 308. Kalin’s favourite thing about birding is “finding the remaining patches of really great habitat and exploring. I love diving into a brambly swamp to see what birds are hiding there. You never know what you might find.”
If you are in the area, Kalin leads walks for the RDCO. You can register online and attend several free nature programs and events. He also highly recommends evening walks during summer at Johns Family Nature Conservancy Regional Park, where you can “hike the trail and listen to the songs of canyon wrens echo off the cliffs, and then the common poorwills start calling as the sun goes down, one of my favourite places in the valley.”
Looking to start your own birding adventure in Kelowna? Check out the Kelowna Itinerary on the The Okanagan Bird Trail!
