Exploring Kootenay Lake

The Sun came out; the birds came out; I came out — and took a distinctly odd picture. We are used to seeing folded wings on perched birds, and extended wings on flying birds. But, this shot shows folded wings on flying birds.

I was watching a flock of redpolls. They would alight on a bush, feed on seeds, and then abruptly take off all at once only to fly to an adjacent bush.

As do many small birds, redpolls use flap-bounding flight. Flight follows an undulatory path where birds flap through the troughs, and fold their wings to bound across the ridges where they follow a nearly ballistic trajectory. It is called bounding flight because it resembles the bounding gait of leaping earth-bound animals. Apparently such a flight pattern saves energy and allows birds to fly slower than their normal cruising speed. 

This view shows redpolls feeding on seeds before taking to the air once again.

As redpolls spend half their flight time flapping and half bounding (with folded wings), a typical view of them flying shows about half in each mode.

At one point, a distinctly odd image was captured where almost all were bounding. I suspect that there is a simple explanation. Birds take off together, and all start by flapping. Before they get out of synchronization, most will then begin bounding at the same time. A picture taken at that moment makes them look like a shoal of fish.

“Ok, I know that that obnoxious photographer (the one who tries to muscle in on my personal territory) recently made fun of my attempt to wander my domain in privacy. I was mortified by the insensitivity of his treatment. The truth is that I am a registered grouse model and have strutted on the world’s best avian runways. So, my agent has advised me to insist on better representation. As you can see, I am fully compliant with recent restrictions on ultra-thin models.”

Humour depends upon one’s perspective, so while this grouse may not think itself funny, I do.

Grouse have cryptic plumage, which allows them to blend with the undergrowth. The camouflage extends to moving at a funereal pace. By walking very slowly, feathers can appear to be little more than shifting patches of sunlight on the forest floor.

This morning’s Ruffed Grouse walked past with great stealth, apparently confident that doing so made it invisible — even against a field of snow.

I learned something from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) this morning. Frank Ritcey of Kamloops was interviewed on the subject of why dippers dip. Alas, the short answer to that question was: We don’t know. 

However, Mr. Ritcey also pointed out that dippers have a white eyelid. Wow, while I had seen this many times when dipper watching, I had thought that I was seeing the bird’s nictitating membrane. I was wrong. I promptly went to my favourite spot for observing dippers and waited for a blink. My dippers did not disappoint. 

An American Dipper blinks and reveals its white eyelid. The eyelid is apparently covered with exceedingly small white feathers, some hint of which is apparent even at this resolution.

While I watched dippers hunt, one brought a clutch of kokanee eggs to the surface, and then, obligingly, blinked.

The dipper expedition was worth it for not only the shots of the blink, but this one of a dipper coming in for a landing on (what is clearly) a favourite perch in the stream.

“Look, I know my phone is around here someplace, so keep looking.”

The month and year end with a contrast: a goshawk and a goose.

The goshawk is an opportunistic predator that takes small mammals and birds often on the edge of forests. Its name means goose hawk, and apparently it will go after geese. I see a goshawk perhaps once a year.

A goshawk may be uncommon, but a goose is not. It is so common as to be almost boring — except for one leucistic female. Her lack of a pigmented crown and nape makes her identifiable. She is an individual and clearly deserves a name. How about Lucy? It is for leucistic (making her full name, Lucy Goosey, chuckle). When seen first in March 2012, Lucy already had a mate so she was probably hatched two or three years earlier. She was seen with chicks in June 2014. Canada Geese mate for life and can live for two dozen years. As Lucy is now five or six years old, there may be many more years of Lucy watching — as long as she avoids our local goshawk.