Editor’s Note: As well as being my daughter, Sandra Vogel is a writer and former community newspaper editor. Also a nature lover and avid gardener, she spends as much time outdoors and in natural settings with her husband and two dogs as possible—including in the mountains near where she lives— enjoying camping, hiking, photography, native plant identification and motorcycling. When not outdoors, she also enjoys “upcycling”—turning unwanted clothing into wearable art. How does that sound? (Is “plant identification” a thing? I mean, is there a different term for it that’s somewhere between botanist and “plant-er” … which could be the vegetation equivalent of bird-er but probably isn’t?)
I’ll start this with a confession: My surname means bird in both German and Dutch but best not to think of me as a “birder,” at least not in the way most people use the term. I don’t check off birds I’ve seen on a master list, I don’t travel with the intention of seeking out a specific species and I can’t focus a pair of binoculars on a bird-like object high up in a tree to save my life.
You could confidently call me a nature watcher though. And birds, with their often colourful plumage and distinct voices, are typically one of the most obvious animals in a natural area. Plus, they often spend a lot of time in trees, which I love enthusiastically and will hug at random. (Though I’m not a tree hugger in the way most people use the term either.)
For the past 30 years, I’ve lived in two different valleys in southern British Columbia—first the Okanagan Valley and now the Creston Valley—both crucial to numerous migratory birds as they journey between their breeding grounds in western Canada and wintering areas in the US, Central and South America. This route, the Pacific Flyway, is one of four major migratory bird routes, stretching from the Arctic southward to Patagonia, Argentina and Chile.
As a result, we host plenty of visiting bird species such as the Tundra swan, Calliope hummingbird, and barn swallow. But there are also numerous full-timers thanks to our milder-than-is-typically-Canadian winters. Black capped chickadees, downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, ospreys, bald eagles, and wild turkeys are just a few of the bird species that stick around all year
As a result, I don’t have to travel far to see a plethora of different birds. In fact, since I live in the country with a backyard full of coniferous trees and keep a fully stocked bird feeder, I don’t even have to leave my yard.
So let’s start small from the back door and work our way up, shall we?
Calliope Hummingbird – tiniest bird, best living arrangement
Calliope hummingbirds are the smallest native bird species in North America and one of my favourites. Weighing in at just two or three grams—the merest fraction of an ounce—they can be remarkably feisty for their size, sometimes even chasing the larger Anna’s and Rufous off the feeders in spring. These tiny winged wonders and their Napoleon complexes arrive in late April, raise their young and head back to central or southwestern Mexico—a distance of over 2,000 miles—usually in late September. If that’s not the perfect living arrangement—not to mention and incredible journey for one so small—I don’t know what is!
But in the meantime, they’re frequent visitors to my hummingbird feeders. In fact, if I don’t have the feeders filled when they arrive, a scout will inevitably find me in the garden and hover right in front of my face in what I assume is an (almost) silent request for me to rectify the situation. The same thing happens if I accidentally let the feeders run dry.
But by mid-summer, the Calliopes seem to abandon the feeder to the larger hummingbirds and spend much of the day flying between the flowering marshmallow and comfrey plants in my medicinal herb garden and the mature spruce trees across the road. I’d wager there’s a tiny, well-hidden nest over there whose wee tenants are keeping their parents busy all day. You’ve got to respect a parent that chooses to raise young on natural food rather than fast food!
Once the young fledge, one of their first stops is the scarlet runner beans planted on the trellis that shades my back deck from the hot southern sunshine. For a week or two, I’ll regularly see a trainee Calliope trying to work out how to aim its long bill into a bright red flower that’s in constant motion thanks to a summer breeze.
Red Breasted Nuthatch
One of the prettiest tiny birds going with their striped black and white heads, grey-blue back, and tail feathers and rusty-orange bellies, red breasted nuthatches are busy, single-minded birds during breeding season. They’ll dart into the feeder in between the sparrows and chickadees, grab a seed and return to their nests dozens of times in a row.
As is the case with chickadees, I’m particularly keen to attract nuthatches because they also eat bugs. So we hang the feeders in the apple trees hoping they’ll help reduce the number of pests that prey on our crop.
Two years ago, a nuthatch built a nest in one of the apple trees. I discovered it while thinning the fruit. Despite my surprised face appearing about two feet away and right at eye level, she refused to leave the nest, giving me what I can only describe as “the beady eyeball.” I wished her and her family well and left her alone for the rest of the season. Hopefully she hatched a nest-full of equally active and attractive bug catchers!
Black-capped Chickadee
In sharp contrast to the serious and territorial Calliope hummingbirds and the single-minded nuthatches, black-capped chickadees are like happy-go-lucky United Nations ambassadors. I’ll often see these year-round residents dining at the feeder alongside nuthatches, sparrows, and purple finches. In fact, outside of breeding season, they often form foraging flocks with other species. At the feeder they’ll dive in to grab a seed and fly to the nearest branch to pry it open, frequently stopping work to air their familiar chick-a-dee-dee-dee call. They seem to spend more time playing—fluttering from branch to branch with their buddies and chatting—than actually getting down to the bird business of eating.
Though I’ve never managed to accomplish this because I’m hard pressed to stand still for long enough in my large garden, these are the birds you see eating out of people’s hands. They’re that friendly and not in the least shy. And there’s just something about them that makes you happy when you take the time to watch and listen to them.
Pine Siskin
These tiny seed seekers with their pretty yellow and brown striped plumage are frequent visitors. Once the young are introduced to the feeders, we often find them napping there among the seeds, head cocked to the side. In fact, sometimes they’re so sound asleep, we’re able to pet the top of a tiny head! Sound sleep doesn’t seem a viable survival strategy in a bird, yet there are pine siskin aplenty.
Downy Woodpecker
The smallest woodpecker in this area, the Downy woodpecker is perhaps the shiest birds to visit our yard. I love their colouring—white belly, black wings with white freckles and a small red prayer cap for the males—and how “downy” they are. It gives the mature birds a youthful, fresh-out-of-the-egg vibe.
These are the acrobats of the woodpecker family, though the entire species does seem to manage their fair share of feats of upside down dangling.
A particularly cuddly-looking little specimen frequents one of our old apple trees year-round, no doubt keeping its bark free from whatever tiny insects were hoping to reside there indefinitely. If it notices me noticing it, this little guy will take a few steps around the trunk and out of sight. I’ll circle around to get a better view—or, please, please, a decent photo—and it will again step to the side out of view. Apparently one of us doesn’t have a garden to weed and can do this all day!
Robin
Up until this year, I thought of robins as the harbinger of spring. But the robins hung around all through our mild winter, joining up into large flocks and consuming trees’ worth of berries despite how I’ve always thought of them as loners.
Between their oddly soldier-like wing position and their penchant for viewing the neighbourhood from the top of the tallest tree, a convenient fencepost, or one of our tall orchard sprinklers, robins are the sentinels of the bird community. And as the last to go silent in the evening, they’re obviously on duty until dark.
Robins build their untidy nests all around our property—from the eaves of the house to the maple trees out back. And once the young fledge, there are always several small squadrons of speckled sentinels-in-training patrolling the grass for insects. Their quick run then halt method of locating prey would distinguish them from other ground foraging birds even if their colouring didn’t.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Early last spring a sharp-shinned hawk spent a half-hour or so in our backyard, likely hunting the small birds that frequent our feeder on its way to northern BC or Alaska for the summer. In a reversal of what we typically see with migratory birds, they over-winter here and leave us before the heat of summer.
At between nine and 13 inches in length, “sharpies” as they’re often called, are the smallest hawk in North America and exhibit the most extreme sexual dimorphism of any raptor on the continent. The females are usually about one-third larger than the males. With their slate-grey backs and fine orange and white bars below, these are very attractive birds though those eyes do give them that somewhat formidable raptor stare!
Pileated Woodpecker
When you need a determined bird, look no further than the pileated woodpecker. These large Woody-woodpecker specimens seem to me to have the hardest job in the bird kingdom: hammering holes in unforgiving wood all day in order to eke out a bug or two. Sounds like a headache in the making! But apparently woodpeckers have built-in shock absorbers. Their long tongues reside in a structure called the hyoid apparatus—a Y-shaped system of bones and cartilage that runs from their beaks, curves up behind the skull and sometimes even loops around their eye sockets and over the cranial crest. This reduces impact on the brain during the high-speed pecking they have perfected.
I first met our pileated woodpecker while sitting in my living room in my favourite spot by the window. I was trying to read and it was trying to drill a hole from the outside in. While hanging from our cedar siding, the woodpecker stopped its work and stretched its neck over its right shoulder to get a better look at me. Having the feeling that I was being watched, I looked over my left shoulder and saw an upside down red head and beady black eyes staring at me. We looked at each other for a minute or two and then he slowly withdrew his head and got back to work. When my practical-minded husband asked if I’d shooed him off the house, I said “No, I went outside and took his picture.”
Wild Turkey
Given that they hang out in the yard every day and benefit from not infrequent handfuls of the sunflower seeds meant for the bird feeder, I’m hard pressed to call the turkeys in our neighbourhood “wild” though indeed they are.
Native to eastern North America, wild turkeys were introduced to the western United States as game birds and have continued to spread north. They weren’t present in my area of the Okanagan Valley but the Creston Valley is home to thousands of them. Here they substitute for the California quail that the Okanagan has aplenty.
If it wasn’t for their prehistoric looking heads and red to almost purple wattles, the opalescence of their brown barred feathers—which catch the light and change from purple to green—would make these birds quite attractive! Large at up to 25 pounds, they don’t spend a lot of time airborne, flying only to roost and when chased.
A large flock roosts in one of the huge spruce trees up the hill behind our house. And one morning I was awake at dawn—a rare occurrence—to see how their morning started. First one bird flew down and landed on the road, calling to the others who one or two at a time flew down to join it. Eventually there were 20 or more turkeys chattering away in front of the house before they went their separate ways in small groups to forage.
In winter, the turkeys often band together by the 20s or 30s and remain grouped through mating season before dividing up into family groups. In spring, the males spend a lot of their time strutting about with tails fanned out and feathers plumped, dragging their wing feathers on the ground, which makes a sound that can’t help but draw attention to them. We frequently see males chasing females around and around trees and later, females leading large clutches of fuzzy little chicks around the yard.
As there’s a lot in this valley for wild turkeys to eat, they don’t seem to bother the fenced gardens much in summer. But the odd one will make its way over the fence and into our dogs’ bad books. Once notified by the dogs, I’ve run out into the garden in my housecoat and slippers to chase a turkey out of the garden first thing in the morning more than once! Left to their own devices, they can do a quick number on your tidy rows of potential produce—something they’re prone to do to the backyard kale in winter when forage is scarce.
Beyond the backyard
Birds are the most diverse group of land vertebrates and I’ve only touched on a few of the species that visit my yard. Birds range in size from the tiniest of hummingbirds—Cuba’s bee hummingbird—to the ostrich, although the wandering albatross is said to be the largest flighted bird with a wingspan of up to 12 feet.
Whether large or small, in the back yard of further afield, birds represent a freedom that only taking to the sky and landing where and when you will can offer. For those of us restricted to a more land-locked existence, there’s something magical about that. And something equally special about bearing witness to the small part of their lives we glimpse by watching them.
I may not be a “real” bird watcher, but I can confidently say that there’s a simple joy to be experienced by witnessing birds at work and play in one’s own back yard—a reminder that nature carries on in the real world doing what it’s always done regardless of what’s happening in the more complex, contrived world of humans.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in April 2026. Information reflects what was accurate at the time of writing. For topics that may change quickly, please verify current details before planning. To ensure honesty and avoid bias, this website features no ads, no sponsored content, and no affiliate links—just straightforward information for fellow travelers.
