A walk in Kokanee Park on New Year’s Eve revealed two less-common female birds.
A Pileated Woodpecker went from tree to tree scouring for edibles. It is almost certainly the same female that appeared earlier in the month (blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=34028) .
This Pygmy Owl just looks pregnant, so I guess it is female. Some winters don’t have many Pygmy Owls coming to the valley bottoms, but this year they are fairly easy to find.
Happy New Year 2025. I sure would love to see another owl. I’ve only ever seen one, a saw whet, and it came to me, sitting on our tractor in the open garage for some time during a snow storm. It was at eye level, and watched us walk back and forth getting firewood from the other side of the tractor, so close, sometimes turning its head, sometimes blinking, sometimes closing its eyes and ignoring us. What a magic event!
I saw a pygmy owl on the dog walk in NelsonIt, today. It waited for lengthy watching
before it decided that the photo shoot was over or that it had been counted in the
annual bird count.
That little owl is sooooo cute! Great photos, as always, Alistair!