Exploring Kootenay Lake

The cormorant is an interesting bird. It has a long history of interaction with humans, and most of this time the cormorant was presented as surprisingly bad. I encountered one this last weekend, but observations of it are not all that common around here.

The cormorant is perhaps the most vilified of birds, a status that seems to go back many centuries and is offered with various justifications. This vilification can be illustrated by the government of Ontario, where in 2020, licenced hunters were allowed to shoot up to fifteen cormorants a day. This was justified by the claim that cormorants were harming fish stocks and damaging natural habitats with their guano. Yet, many other predator species who do likewise were ignored. Why cormorants? The answer seems to date back centuries, even millennia.

Two somewhat early references to the evilness of cormorants were from the seventeenth century, each of which was redolent of much earlier attitudes. In the 1667 poem, Paradise Lost (Book 4), Milton casts the devil in the guise of a cormorant (4. 196-8), spying on Adam and Eve, and a year later one of La Fontaine’s Fables presents the cormorant as the epitome of greed. Now, it turns out that this later was just a retelling of an Aesop’s fable <https://fablesofaesop.com/cormorant-fishes.html>. So, we have at least 2600 years of writing about the cormorant’s villainy. Hmm…, unlike other early fables (such as the flat earth), it appears that this is one which lives on into the present.

The Audubon society treats the American history of cormorant persecution  <https://www.audubon.org/news/without-solid-science-government-plans-expand-cormorant-killing-efforts>. It concludes by saying, “We’re seeing the birds scapegoated because that’s the easy and convenient thing to do.” 

In 2014, Richard King wrote The Devil’s Cormorant: a Natural History (University of New Hampshire Press. 352 pp.) in which he traces the long history of man’s relationship with the cormorant. Although some oriental societies value it, western societies systematically denounce it as a symbol of gluttony, greed, bad luck, and evil. The cormorant has truly led a troubled existence in human history, myth, and literature. As King romps over centuries, he describes the slaughter of 20,000 Double-crested Cormorants in 1998 by a group calling itself the Concerned Citizens for Cormorant Control. This group of local fishermen merely saw the cormorants as competitors for the fish of Lake Ontario. Well, the list goes on.

Humans have had a two to three thousand year history of vilifying the cormorant although the reasons given have varied over time and the cormorant is hardly alone as a predator. (Indeed, mankind is also a predator.) In the face of natural variation, we have chosen to cast blame on the cormorant and then have taken the easy route and killed many thousands of them.

A Double-crested Cormorant rests on a piling. Of three species of cormorants in BC, this is the only one that is occasionally found in the interior. It is a pleasant observation.

I don’t see a Northern Harrier very often; the last time was five years ago. So when one visited today, I wondered what it was. This one appears to be a female, or perhaps a juvenile.

The harrier was sitting on a piling near me watching some ducks below it, but it did not make a move towards them.

Swans are now heading south to escape the ice, but last February they were heading north to breed. Consequently, twice a year they are feeding in our area as they pass through. 

Last February, I posted about spread-winged trumpeters: http://blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=32321. I had watched the Trumpeter Swans for an hour or so: first feeding, then preening, and finally spreading their wings. There were 18 swans, each of which underwent the same routine. It became clear that the visually appealing spreading and flapping of the wings was just the final stage of the preening.

First, a swan would spend time using its bill to interlock feather barbules that had become separated, and as a final step, it would spread its wings to align wing feathers that pointed askew. At this point, it was ready to fly.

In last February’s posting I mentioned that “[J]uveniles also spread wings”, but I did not show any. During the present southward migration, I watched this year’s juvenile preening by both using its bill to interlock barbules and then spreading its wings to align the feathers. Two pictures follow.

The juvenile is interlocking wing barbules while its parent looks on.

Subsequently, it spread and flapped its wings to align the feathers.

When not migrating or sleeping, a bird spends most of its time looking for food. Yet, of all the pictures taken of birds, it is relatively uncommon to see a bird with something eatable in its bill. There are a number of reasons for this, but perhaps the major one is that once food is in the bill, it is so quickly consumed that it is barely noticeable for having being there.

I like to catch pictures of birds with food in their bills. It isn’t easy. Here are four pictures taken over the last little while.

Almost unnoticed is a small beetle in the bill of a Red-breasted Nuthatch. The bird had found it hibernating in the bark of a Douglas fir.

A Dipper has found perhaps three fertilized Kokanee eggs in a stream.

Seeing a swan with something dangling from is bill (other than water) is unusual, because the aquatic weed is usually consumed underwater where it is found.

A Herring Gull eats a fish. In this case, the gull takes some time trying to position the fish as it moves about the water. However, a shot showing the fish’s eye is harder to get. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.

Only rarely do I see a Barred Owl, and often someone else spots one for me. And yet, this owl does not migrate with the seasons, but confines itself to a space of about 10 km on a side. These pictures were taken today. 

 It usually hunts from a perch and catches most of its prey at night. During the daytime, it is often sleeping.

But, it will occasionally awaken to view the world with its soulful eyes.

Nearly two weeks ago, Joanne Siderius, Kokanee Creek Park’s senior naturalist, published some pictures of a cygnet.

Yesterday three of us saw what was apparently the same cygnet at close quarters, again at the park. I have seen a cygnet with its pink bill a few times previously, but only in November or December. This was the closest I had been. 

This might be a Tundra Swan or a Trumpeter Swan. There are ambiguous indicators. Joanne thought it was probably a tundra, and in the end that is my guess also.

Swans head south in the fall and north in the spring. Already there have been reports of the first swans coming through this region. Yesterday, when I went past a place of shallow water there was nothing to be seen, but when coming back there were four Trumpeters feeding. Here are two of them.

Six years ago, I wondered if “if birds named after people will be the apostrophe’s last bastion.” <blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=20350>

I noted that we had lost the apostrophe in geographic names: “Around Kootenay Lake, Johnson’s Landing is officially Johnsons Landing and Queen’s Bay has become Queens Bay — despite no compelling evidence for multiple eponymous Johnsons or Queens.” However: “In ornithology, the possessive still rules when it comes to birds which have been named to commemorate the work of naturalists from earlier times.” The literature was replete with the Say’s Phoebe and the Barrow’s Goldeneye.

But now, ornithology is about to completely drop the use human names for the common names of birds. They will all be renamed. OK, ornithology in this case is the American Ornithological Society which sets the standard for common bird names in Canada and the U.S. This is described in a number of news stories. Consider: “These American birds and dozens more will be renamed, to remove human monikers.” It is available from npr.org/2023/11/01/1209660753.

Now, I wish to sidestep the reason for this change (which is the removal of “bird names deemed offensive or exclusionary”) and deal with the collateral damage of the elimination of the apostrophe. Alas, it will go.

The NPR story gives three examples, out about 80, that will change over the next few years: Wilson’s Warbler, Cooper’s Hawk, and the Steller’s Jay, all of which we have here.

The still Wilson’s Warbler will become what?

Cooper’s Hawk will change.

The Steller’s Jay is not only exceedingly common here, but it is the provincial bird of British Columbia. Will its renaming require legislation to continue its presence?

It will be interesting, but I will be sorry to see the continued loss of the apostrophe.

I went for the Snow Buntings, but stayed for the Gray-crowned Rosy Finches.

Often we go for a delightful walk along the shore or in the woods, but see little that prompts a blog posting. Now and then, we are pleasantly surprised. The only occasionally seen Snow Buntings were welcome, but the Rosy Finches were exceptional.

Saturday morning started with the Snow Buntings. First observed by Paul Prappas on Nelson’s dog walk, Cynthia found some there later and took shots. Then, three of us went out to Kokanee Creek Park in the afternoon to see if the Snow Buntings were also there and saw three. Good fun, for I have only seen these migrants every few years.

The prize was seen about 60 meters outside the Park. Although the Gray-crowned Rosy Finches were so uncommon at these low altitudes that at first, while interesting, they went unrecognized. These birds breed at the highest altitudes of any bird and rarely descend to the valley bottoms. It is even rarer to see a flock in the valley.

Let’s start with buntings.

A Snow Bunting on Nelson’s dog walk. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.

Two of the three Snow Buntings seen in Kokanee Creek Park.

Following this there were a large number of birds seen just outside the Park. They were alternately eating on the ground and flying to the next feeding place. This group contains less than a third of them. They took a while to identify. Photo by Cynthia.

There were more than sixty of these birds, and much of their time was spent on the ground finding things to eat. This small slice of them shows both the interior variety and the coastal variety. Photo by Cynthia.

Here is a closer view of the two subspecies. The interior variety is seen on the left (colour to below the eye), and the coastal variety on right (grey on the cheek). The coastal variety was most of the crowd, but clearly not all.

The Gray-crowned Rosy Finch is one of those birds that saves energy by alternating between flapping and gliding. Here it is gliding.

I don’t often get a chance to see a large flock of birds in close flight. So, it is fun to comment on something I have witnessed in a flock before: collisions. Now there are a number of web pages from reputable sources that will assure you that birds in a flock never collide. Alas, these sites are promoting nonsense. There are at least three collisions in this one picture. Birds collide in a flock all the time, but they recover quickly.