Maude-Roxby Wetland (Bird Sanctuary)

Tucked into the Okanagan Lake shoreline at the end of Francis Avenue in the Pandosy neighbourhood, the Maude-Roxby Wetland is a bird sanctuary you can walk into from a residential street. A raised boardwalk with benches and small piers threads through willow groves and cattail marsh to a viewing platform that juts out over the lake, so you can watch the water and the reeds at the same time with almost no disturbance to what lives there. Winter brings rafts of gulls and waterfowl, with tundra and trumpeter swans possible; spring fills the willows with warblers, vireos and flycatchers; herons, ducks and red-winged blackbirds are here most of the year; and because the site has turned up so many wandering rarities over the years, the Central Okanagan Naturalists' Club keeps a close eye on it. It is a stop on the BC Bird Trail and one of Kelowna's best-known birding spots, yet it stays quiet. The boardwalk is wheelchair-friendly and the park is free and open year-round. This is a nature preserve first: no dogs are allowed; parking is on the street. It is about 4 km south of City Park along Abbott Street, an easy bike ride on the lakeside route.