News Flash: this is a rock wren, two readers have told me. Very cool.

Well, my birding friends, what do you think? It was a little shy, a little friendly, and has some distinctive markings that don’t quite match the pics in my bird book.

That we were both hanging around in a ditch below a blasting scar on the side of the road in Vernon, above Okanagan Lake, is another story altogether, but fortuitous. It flew ahead of me, and when I caught up, it flew back. It wasn’t going to leave that ditch. It had some interesting bushes and scruffy weeds at the other end, and a sumac a little further along.

I don’t know what it thought of the sumac, but the deer and I both liked it.