Exploring Kootenay Lake

My yard lies within the range of a few Ruffed Grouse. I don’t see them every day, but often enough that I get to track some of the species’ idiosyncrasies. 

It is winter, and the Ruffed Grouse often now feeds in trees rather than on snowy ground. As the grouse is prey, its eyes are on the side of its head to give it panoramic vision to spot predators.

In this view of the back of the grouse, its protruding left eye can be seen. The grouse can actually see behind itself. Also, the unbroken dark terminal band on its collapsed tail is evidence that this bird is a male.

That this grouse is likely a female is evidenced by the dark terminal band on its spread tail. The band is broken in the middle by a greyish section. Alas, while this is suggestive of the bird’s sex, it is not definitive.

The -kins are getting together. Siskins are little finches that are partial to eating seeds. Catkins are pods of seeds hanging from some broad-leafed trees. The two are clearly kins. 

Pine Siskins are with us year round. They travel in large flocks that settle on plants to eat seeds, and on winter highways to sip salt and get mashed (see bird brains).

A lone Pine Siskin uses its feet to hold a catkin still as it extracts seeds from it.

Where there is one siskin, there are dozens. These are raiding the catkins of alder birch. 

OK, this Pine Siskin is not raiding catkins, but I couldn’t resist the scene. 

I took an indifferent picture of a Brown Creeper this morning. Indeed, it is barely worth posting — except for the backstory: with this creeper it is four for four.

I have seen a Brown Creeper four times, and on each of those occasions someone else found it for me. I have never found one on my own. OK, in my defence, this little bird is the master of disguise. 

Yet…, how long will this creeper-finding disability persist?

A Brown Creeper (briefly) clings to the trunk of a Douglas-fir in the forest.

This better shot of a Brown Creeper was taken in 2017, but it also was found by someone else.

The chickadee is cute, abundant, and a pleasant visitor at home feeders. Of course, what is being discussed is the ubiquitous Black-capped Chickadee. However, we also have three other species of chickadee. In the order of most to least commonly seen, the four chickadees are: black-capped, chestnut-backed, mountain, and boreal. 

While this posting records my first observations of the Mountain Chickadee, I will start by showing what I have seen earlier: the two more common chickadees. I have yet to spot the Boreal Chickadee.

This is the rather common Black-capped Chickadee, seen here excavating a nest. It has a black cap that extends to the bottom of its eye, and a black bib. It is widespread across the continent.

The somewhat less common Chestnut-backed Chickadee has both of those features, but also has chestnut-coloured feathers on its back and belly. It favours conifer forests and so is confined to the far west.

This is the best shot I managed during a rather brief encounter with some Mountain Chickadees. The white line above the eye is visible here, but not its black cap. This chickadee favours not only conifer forests, but those at a high altitude. So, when it sometimes descends to the valley bottoms in the winter, it still visits conifers for seeds.

My daughter, Cynthia, managed a far better shot of one of the Mountain Chickadees. Not only is the white separation between the eye line and the cap clearly visible, but the bird is also extracting a winged seed from a (female) cone of a Douglas-fir tree.

Cynthia also managed this grand shot of the Mountain Chickadee leaving with a seed in its bill. 

Cynthia Fraser’s images are used with permission.

They are variously known as suicide birds and grill birds (owing to their propensity to be smashed by vehicular grills). These are the finches of winter, and primarily they are Pine Siskins.

Pine Siskins seem to crave salt, and highway maintenance provides salt in abundance (to melt snow on the roads). So, flocks of finches settle on the highways and feed, temporarily ignoring the danger. Along comes the traffic; the finches panic and lift off. Inevitably, some of them don’t leave quickly enough and become road kill. 

That any little birds are mashed by traffic is sad. However there is an interesting pattern to be seen here. The deaths do not appear to be random, but are skewed towards inept birds. In 2017, a study was made of data assembled over many years by a taxidermist. He had listed organ weight and the cause of death of 3521 birds across 251 species. An analysis showed that birds killed in traffic had relatively smaller brains. While this may seem to be natural selection at work, these deaths are hardly desirable.

In this instance, Pine Siskins have alighted beside the highway to feed on salt.

At the first sign of a threat, the birds take to the air, but some do not react quickly enough to escape being smashed by oncoming traffic.

Around where the siskins had been feeding on the highway there were many dead birds. Some were on the pavement; others had been tossed by the traffic onto adjacent snowbanks. Sigh.

A side note: I have sometimes read comments by birders who wonder why birds in a flock never collide. (Strangely, they don’t ask if birds collide, they assume an answer and ask for an explanation.) Actually, birds in a flock often seem to collide, however they recover quickly and carry on. Here, three panicky siskins are in a aerial pileup.

A visitor wearing a red cap arrived through the air this morning and then hung around eating snacks. It all seemed to fit the legends of the day.

The red-capped visitor was a female Pileated Woodpecker and the snacks were rowan berries.

The last time I saw a Barred Owl in Kokanee Creek Park was a dozen years ago. Subsequently, I have seen a few Pygmy Owls and even Great Horned Owls there, but not a Barred. So, it was unexpected today when I spotted a protruding telephoto lens — a sure sign that there was something interesting to be seen. The camera belonged to a friend who had a Barred Owl in his sights. 

The Barred Owl lives year-round in mixed forests where large trees are found in the vicinity of water. While that is a good description of the local terrain, finding an owl in the trees is a real challenge.

Daytime is a drowsy time for a Barred Owl.

With its eyes sort of open, the Barred Owl stares dreamily from its perch in a Douglas-fir tree.