Today Herb and our friend Mark accompanied me to take a second bluebird nest box to the old burn on Goats Peak. On the hike in we disturbed two browsing mule deer.They moved slowly away over a ridge. Just then my eyes caught a flash of blue--a male Mountain Bluebird!

While we watched, a second male appeared and joined with the first in serious aerial combat. Together they fluttered to the ground, continuing their battle on the ground for a few moments before separating. At this point, I managed to get a picture of one of them.

Male Mountain Bluebirds are said to arrive in the Okanagan ahead of the females. It seems that these two males were already staking their claims to territory.

We placed the nest box and a camera to monitor it on two old fire blackened pine trees, about two metres apart. This new nest box was set perhaps 400 metres from the first, far enough away to allow families of bluebirds to enjoy some space from each other.

Later, when I examined the memory cards from my cameras, I found a picture of a male Western Bluebird at the first nest box that we took to Goats Peak and also pictures of a male flicker. One of the pictures shows the flicker just taking off, showing the salmon-coloured undersides of his wings.

On our way back out of the burn, we came upon a Mourning Dove  on a ridge top. It seemed unusually unafraid, letting us approach within about 5 metres before taking flight. Perhaps it was searching out a place to nest, as I recall that last spring or early summer, I flushed a morning dove from her nest on the ground nearby.

We found quite a few Sagebrush Buttercups  in the burn today and also some tiny pink flowers that I will have to label "Unknown". 

I would be grateful to anyone who can identify them. They were growing on an exposed ridge top, the flower stems and flowers virtually prostrate on the ground. I regret that I did not think to count the petals but they seemed few in number, perhaps only four petals on each of these little trumpet-shaped flowers.