Osprey, fish & chick

 

Three of us went early Sunday morning to watch a nearby Osprey nest. We were rewarded by seeing the male bring in a large fish, and the appearance of a chick. 

The male Osprey delivers the first fish of the day to his partner and unseen chick.

The female ravenously feeds herself and the chick while the male keeps watch. As far as we can tell, there is only one chick in this family. Photo by Cynthia.

When the female and chick have had a feast, the male flies of with the remains of the fish to eat it on a nearby piling. Photo by Dorothy.

 

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White-tailed fawn

 

I have seen a few white-tailed fawns, but this has got to be the smallest, and thus youngest, of that small group.

A mother white-tailed deer attends to her small fawn.

 

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Osprey & partial fish

 

When the male Osprey has a partner and (unseen) chicks in the nest, he becomes the sole provider of fish. Yet, when he catches a fish, he often will stop and eat the tasty head before delivering the remains to the nest. 

A male osprey has stopped on his way to the nest and has eaten the tasty head.

He then takes the rest of the fish to the nest.

After taking the fish to the nest and feeding his family, this male flew off with the leftovers to eat by himself. His partner is leaning over and tending the unseen chicks.

 

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Osprey wings

 

A female Osprey sat for some time in the rain on a piling as it watched the water below for fish. It finally gave up and prepared to leave. It pooped and (what I had not seen before) flapped its wings to shake off their accumulated rain water. She then flew off. 

It just isn’t clear to me what the osprey is doing differently with its wings. In each case it flapped them, but in the first case it did not lift off, in the second case it did.

The osprey stands on the piling and flaps its wings to clear them of the rain water.

The osprey flaps its wings and flies off.

 

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Flower beetle mating

 

I was looking for a crab spider eating on a daisy. I didn’t find one.

Instead, I found a yellow velvet beetle mating. Well, the bug is also known as the golden flower longhorn beetle, and also the golden-haired flower longhorn. Ah, the ambiguity of the naming of bugs. At least the scientific name, Lepturobosca chrysocama is fixed. 

A shot of the flower beetle was seen as I walked up past the daisies.

When I walked down again past the daisies, there were two of them positioning to mate.

They then mated. They were fast and it was all over in about 1/8 of a second. The speed of the event meant that there wasn’t time to get an accurate focus. Fun, nevertheless.

 

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Moose

 

What a difference one letter can make. Earlier this week, a mouse was posted here; later that day, we watched a moose. There is a remarkable difference in switching the u f0r the o. The mouse is tiny, the moose is huge. Indeed, the moose is about 30,000 times heavier than the mouse.

A moose is distinctly uncommon around here and to see one walk close by was a treat. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.

The moose went for a swim and briefly turned our way. This enabled us to more easily see the spread of its beginning antlers still coated in velvet. Remarkably, moose antlers can grow up to 2.5 cm (1 inch) daily during June and July.  Photo by Finn Grathwol. 

The moose climbed out of the water and vanished to the upland forest.

 

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House mouse

 

The clearing of a bushy area on my property produced an unexpected sight: two house mice. I have not seen a house mouse (or a rat) for sometime, but apparently at least a couple of mice were living in the brush on the now cleared land. Well, I prefer them outside rather than in the house.

The house mouse appeared groggy after abandoning the cleared area. I moved and released them into the distant woods.

 

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Birds & mammals

 

All these pictures were taken within less than half a kilometre near Harrop. Most were taken in the last two days, but the first was taken at the end of April.

Three male white-tailed deer, with small antler buds, were running along the lakeshore. As they bound, each has only one foot touching the ground.

A columbian ground squirrel has a mouthful of grass to prepare a soft bed for his underground nest.

In the summer months, the Chipping Sparrow is common across North America. In the winter months, it is mostly gone,

This picture is included largely to show the long tail of a flying adult Black-billed Magpie.

Two days ago, we watched a juvenile Magpie. It hopped around on the ground for it was too young to fly. Look how short its tail is.

These two Common Loons are curious. They are a couple. The larger male is slightly in front. They were close to the shore (which is odd). They are in breeding plumage, yet are on this lake. Normally, by now, they will have gone to a higher lake in the surrounding mountains to breed. Also their eyes are not the bright red of breeding loons, yet they otherwise look like a breeding pair.

Er, a three-winged Killdeer flies away.

 

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Pine Siskins

 

Pine Siskins are nomadic and irruptive. They are here one season and gone the next as they roam around looking for seeds in trees. Today, a flock of them was indulging in a offbeat practice of getting salt into their diet in a parking lot that had been salted by humans to melt snow and ice during last winter.

A small proportion of the more than 30 Pine Siskins eating salt in a parking lot.

 

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Tadpoles

 

Each spring, thousands of tadpoles spawn at various shallows around the Lake. This is a look at a small portion of one large population seen two days ago. Of course, most of these will die, many being eaten before they become toads that can then wander off into the woods. Since only a few tadpoles survive, that apparently justifies the initial large number.

This represents a tiny portion of the many tadpoles in the shallows.

 

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