Representation afar 2

This is the second posting where I represent the delights of Kootenay Lake to folks attending a meeting some nine time zones away. The first discussed my situation and my photography, this one presents features of the lake itself.

When I explore Kootenay Lake, I do it with a camera. The resulting pictures enable me to study discoveries at my leisure, and then report on them on my blog.

The pictures I show here are only a peek into the delights of the region.

The interaction of the water and shoreline is endlessly fascinating to me. Here is the beautiful, but uncommon pattern known as beach cusps.

Equally ephemeral delights are the many wild orchids found around the shores. The Giant Helleborine is only found in Western North America.

Kootenay Lake plays host to two species of swan, one of which, the Trumpeter is the world’s largest waterbird. It has a wing span of over two metres.

We also have two species of bear. The grizzly is our counterpart of Europe’s brown bear,

and the Black Bear, which despite its name, comes in a striking array of colours. Here is a cinnamon version,

and a blue one.

Seven species of ungulates (hoofed animals) wander our mountains, two of which I show. Our mountain goat, which is distantly related to Europe’s chamois, spends its time on the protective narrow ledges of mountain cliffs.

The bighorn sheep is unique to the mountains of western North America. They are noted for the enthusiasm with which they fight for their mates.

I am fascinated by the interactions of various species. Sometimes this takes the form of mating, such as these copulating Spotted Sandpipers.

Sometimes the interest is the nurturing of offspring by a parent: This Tree Swallow is bringing food to its chicks.

Often it is food gathering, such as this White-tailed buck taking apples from a tree.

And a grizzly sow eating black hawthorn berries.

Here a River Otter is eating a fish it captured.

For a long time, I tried to get a shot of an osprey lifting a fish from the lake. This picture marked success.

Another delight was watching an eagle eating a large rainbow trout at the edge of the water.

In the end, my favourite shot is of a vole facing death in the bill of a heron. As the vole stares into the eyes of the heron, does it know that in less than a second it will vanish down that heron’s gullet?

My penultimate offering is a curiosity. In the mountain lakes of British Columbia, there are legends of a large serpentine lake monster. It is our counterpart to the Loch Ness Monster. Known as the Ogopogo, stories of it predate European settlement and it has continued to be spotted perhaps in every decade since. I have seen it swimming across the lake from my home on two occasions. On this occasion it caught and crushed a fish as it undulated up the lake.

When it spotted me watching from a distant dock, it headed straight at me with the loops of its snake-like body rising and falling in the water.

When it neared me, it turned out to be a family of River Otters.

It seems that our lake monster is just a distantly seen family of travelling otters, but observed by someone who just does not not understand otter behaviour. Here is the ogopogo when it is not coursing down the lake, but resting on an ice shelf — not all that scary.

I end with a picture I tried to get for decades — and when I managed it, it was taken in front of my home. It is a low-sun rainbow with the circle completed by its reflection in the calm waters of the lake.