Kelowna

We didn't want to drive directly from Golden to Vancouver because spending a whole day in the car watching cool stuff go by kind of sucks.   Helen did some research and we found a hotel in Kelowna that had space at a somewhat reasonable price (and a pool).  We made Kelowna our half way point. 

What my internet search failed to uncover is that Robert Lake was flooded and the part I wanted to visit was entirely under water.  I parked at the edge of the road the best I could and started to look for birds.

As far as I can tell, Robert Lake is a duck pond that goes salty as it dries out.  It's the largest pond of several in this part of Kelowna so some days there are lots of waterfowl here, some days it can be less busy.  This evening, there were lots of birds floating by.

This area is surrounded by farms which draw their own kinds of birds.  As the sun was setting, I noticed hundreds of starlings had landed on a fence rail for an evening chat.

 

 Yes, the animals are exotic to us.  The juvenile emu's were quite funny - they had run of the place and would occasionally stop to grab snacks of willow leaves from people, but for the most part just ran around and away.  The Capybara family was also quite popular, but it mostly liked to stay in the mud and people didn't want to walk in.

The farm was subdivided and the Kangaroo/Wallaby area had large grass fields and animals mostly trying to find shade.
 

 
They had some special animal areas - a house with parots and snakes with a "try them out" queue so the kids could have an animal on them (under close supervision of a keeper).