In August of 2014, my wife and I decided on a momentous change in our lives—I’m going to severely compress the process we underwent—for her to join me in retirement, and move from The Coast(al region of BC) to The Interior, and the centre of the Okanagan Valley, Kelowna.

I’ll spare you all the real-estate related stories, but share that we were very fortunate, in our home-hunting phase in the late fall of 2014 to be able to house-sit right across the lane in a condominium complex in Kelowna’s Lower Mission district from the place we finally settled on in December and moved into at the end of February, 2015.

I toyed a year ago with a new blog—something to do when the skies turn gray from temperature inversion and bring occasional rain and snow. Started with a Google product, but could never get it up and going. This fall, with a year’s photographs and musings to draw upon, I am ready to start again, but have decided against using Google’s Blogger. I just find Google, as wonderful as its products are, to be too invasive of my privacy, too determined to force me to show the world everything I have online whether that really suits me or not.

So, I’ve elected to use this free version of WordPress, with which I am fairly familiar from days as a small entrepreneur who maintained his own website until I retired at the end of 2013. Hope those of you who visit these pages find something to enjoy, chuckle over, or even think about….

The purpose of this blog is to share what I do and what I think with anyone interested in what I have to offer. You’ll find photos, mostly of birds that I encounter on my daily walks in the neighbourhood and travels around the region and beyond. I’ll also contribute from time to time, pieces of writing from both past and present that reflect how I feel and what I think about the world I’m part of….

I’ll conclude this first post with  10 images, more or less in chronological order, created (with nature’s providence and my equipment’s capacities) in our first four months here….

To see enlarged images of these shots, right click on the photo and choose open image in a new tab.

Tryst with a Northern Flicker in Thomson Marsh

Dusky Grouse near the Kettle Valley Railway trestles high above Kelowna

American Dipper near the Nature Centre on Mission Creek

Great Horned Owl near Munson Pond

Winter Robin in Thomson Marsh, a short walk from home

Cooper’s Hawk on a high branch at Fascieux Creek

Great Blue Heron of Fascieux Creek on a damp, chilly winter afternoon

Male Belted Kingfisher near Mission Creek Greenway, Lower Mission

Common Goldeneyes in Mission Creek

White-tailed Deer near McCulloch Road

• Birds