Exploring Kootenay Lake

The White-winged Crossbill is a wanderer. It looks for spruce and tamarack cone seeds which it opens with its unusual crisscrossed bill.

Here is a male White-winged Crossbill at Taghum. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.

One never knows when this irruptive finch will appear. Although, we can make educated guesses about where. If they find a forest of cone-laden mature spruce trees, they may even stay and nest.

If you spot one crossbill, look around for a mate. To the left is a female White-winged Crossbill seen feeding near the male on January 25th at Taghum among a flock of Pine Siskins. They were mostly foraging on the ground. Photo by Cynthia.

The Pine Siskins were seen repeatedly eating plant matter, some of which they pulled from the ice. Photo by Cynthia.

The earliest I had seen a Killdeer before today was in mid-March. Indeed, Hinterland Who’s Who states “Killdeer reach southern Canada as early as mid-March…” 

So, why did Cynthia and I see one at Kokanee Creek Park today? Global warming?

 A Killdeer was seen at Kokanee Creek Park this morning.

This is the season when we are visited by the largest waterfowl in the world: the Trumpeter Swan. In the last few days there have been about 30 of them in the waters south and west of Kokanee Creek Park.

Yet, if we were to go back a century, they would not have been seen here, for very few then existed. The problem was that people had been systematically killing and eating them. They also sold their skin and feathers. The number of Trumpeters plummeted. This barbarism was subsequently stopped and the Trumpeter has since flourished. 

Mind you, the Trumpeter Swan does not live here permanently, but does visit for weeks on end to feed as it migrates North to breed.

Normally, when one sees Trumpeter Swans, they are sleeping, feeding, or preening including the feather-straightening exercise of wing spreading.

Yet, in the last couple of days, the behaviour also included courting, fighting, taking off, flying, and landing.

Some of the thirty Trumpeter Swans south of Kokanee Creek Park. Photo by Cynthia.

A lead group of Trumpeter Swans runs across the waters as it picks up enough speed to become airborne. Being very heavy birds, it will take about 100 metres of running before they become airborne. The taking to the air had been prompted by the arrival of a planing boat approaching from the west.

The group was eventually airborne. Photo by Dorothy.

They got higher and with the passage of the boat, they turned around and headed west.

Most swans landed around a corner to the west. Photo by Cynthia.

Some of the swans were seen courting by repeatedly bobbing their heads up and down. Photo by Cynthia.

Now, the other swan bobs its head down. Photo by Cynthia.

Moments later this pair of courting swans drifted close to another courting pair and this caused a ruckus with one male challenging the other. There are two couples here: female and male on the left and male and female on the right. When they moved farther appart, they all settled back down, but the courting was over for the time being.

January is the earliest we’ve observed trumpeters doing what appears to be courting behaviours at Kokanee Creek Park.  Cynthia first documented some exquisite trumpeter courting behaviours on Kootenay Lake in March 2024: https://blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p” onclick=”return false” onmousedown=”return false=33075. 

Trumpeter swans are coming by and a family of six (two parents, four youngsters) were seen for the last few days. The advantage of viewing them from Kokanee Creek Park is that the swans can be seen at eye level and are often fairly close.

The parents are mainly white with a black bill and feet. Well, the head and neck may be stained a rust colour as a result of iron deposits in the sediment and water in which the swan has fed. Such is the case with these adults. There is a small difference in size of the two sexes with the male being slightly larger. The swan in the front is probably a female.

Here is the whole family, with the two whitish adults and the four greyish juveniles or cygnets. Come summer, the cygnets will have turned white. Here, one cygnet is tipped up as it feeds in the shallow water.

The four cygnets all gathered close to the shore and preened. Photo by Cynthia.

Here are three of the cygnets, but one has its wings spread revealing the distribution of grey colour on the wings and body.

Another cygnet with wings spread reveals a rusty colour on the underside. This colour probably results from the feeding area in which it was born. There are two other cygnets in this picture. Photo by Cynthia.

Even the adult has some rusty feathers on its underside.

There are two cygnets here. Both are preening. The one is using its bill on the feathers to clean and tidy individual feathers. The final stage of preening is demonstrated by the bird with its wings spread. Here the feathers are all coaxed to line up.  

A moment of tenderness between parent and child? Photo by Dorothy.

I am not used to seeing animals fighting. But, recently I watched two female white-tailed deer go at it. And now, dippers.

Except during mating and raising their young, dippers are solitary. They defend their territories vigorously against intruders, using vocalizations and physical displays. But fighting?

I have watched a territorial confrontation a number of times. One dipper merely chases another off. That’s it. But, dippers fighting over territory was a first for me. It went on for about 20 seconds and then one gave up and flew off. The other returned to scouring the creek for comestibles. Here are three pictures of the combat offered without comment.

Two days ago, there was only one Trumpeter Swan swimming off of Kokanee Creek Park. Today there were two.