A delight of a lakeshore walk along a sandy beach is the occasional appearance of beach cusps: a natural rhythmic pattern of small cusps and bays. On the main website, I offer somewhat more spectacular views along with an explanation. Also, there is a Wikipedia article that discusses unresolved aspects of the explanation.
Here the periodicity of the beach cusps has been accentuated by a dusting of snow.
The feisty Pygmy Owl is with us year round, but is only seen in the valley bottoms during the winter. Apparently the recent cold was enough to drive it off the mountainsides for one visited my yard on Wednesday.
This fist-sized owl was perched in the same alder tree that waxwings had used the previous day as a staging post. It seems to know that a perch beside a rowan tree affords good hunting of other birds.
It revealed its two fake eyes on the back of its head as it scanned for prey.
“Lest you doubt my prowess, please note my sharp claws and my blood-stained beak.”
When a flock of perhaps two hundred Bohemian Waxwings disturbs one’s nap, you know you have been invaded.
The Bohemian Waxwings used an alder as a staging area from which they repeatedly flew about four metres to a rowan tree (mountain ash). This picture only hints at the many waxwings weighing down the alder branches. 
The objects of their attentions were the nearby rowan berries, to which they flew in waves.
They attacked the berries vociferously.
They underwent contortions to grab them from any unlikely perch.
Berries were either scarfed on the spot,
or carried off.
My favourite shot was this one of crossed waxwings, each with its prize.
The recent cold outbreak has produced striking mirages on the Lake. The water being above freezing and the air being well below produces a large temperature gradient in the lowest few centimetres of air and a more gentle one a bit above. This is an ideal setup to give an inferior mirage, and they abound.
The Harrop cable ferry appears as an inferior mirage as seen from Kokanee Creek Park. The distance is 4.5 km and the intervening water is too rough to give a simple reflection. The appearance of the mirage depends upon the height of the eye above the lake’s surface, which for this picture is about two metres. The water upon which the ferry sits and the bottom of the hull have vanished only to be replaced by an inverted image of the upper portions of the ferry.
When the eye level is lowered to a metre above the lake’s surface, only the superstructure is seen, both right way up and upside down. (In the intervening time the ferry moved across the narrows.) If the eye is moved within a few centimetres of the lake’s surface, the whole ferry vanishes.
A feast of rowan berries (a.k.a mountain ash berries) has been prepared and the guests flew in to enjoy it.
A red-shafted Northern Flicker helped itself.
As did a Varied Thrush.
A Robin showed off its prize.
I suppose that we should be grateful that River Otters have a strange compulsion to use boat docks as potties. If it were not so, we would not see them nearly as often as we do.
The otter swam to the boat dock and climbed out. With its tail whipping water drops, it used the dock as a potty.
Although its visit was brief, it did allow a portrait. 
It is the best, most evocative, shot of a Grizzly Bear I have ever seen (and I have seen and taken many grizzly pictures). It was taken by Jim Lawrence, a wildlife photographer (Kootenay Reflections) and friend.
The story of Jim’s shot can be found at the CTV News site, where Jim comments that “the picture reflects the gentle, intelligent nature of the animals.”
Therein lies the impact of an image such as this: It counters the longstanding scaremongering by wildlife magazines and taxidermists, each of which has a vested interest in demonizing these creatures.
If Jim’s wonderful picture tips the balance against the hunting of Grizzly Bears, so much the better.
Jim Lawrence’s picture is used with permission.
The fall is a time of many transitions. Here are two.
A Black Meadowhawk was seen flying around today. November 2nd is late for any dragonfly to be about.
Meanwhile, Bufflehead Ducks fly in. They are rare in summer, but common in winter.
Official local site
bing.com (the Microsoft and Yahoo search engine) tries to add helpful information alongside its listings. So, if one searches for Vancouver Canada, out of the many million listings bing produces, it labels the one from the city, itself, as being the official one:
Vancouver — Official Site
vancouver.ca
Similarly, among the many results from a search for Selkirk College, bing obligingly says the same about this institution’s site:
Selkirk College — Official Site
selkirk.ca
Fair enough, that sounds as if it is a useful distinction for a listing.
If you now use bing to search for Kootenay Lake, you discover over a million results, but topping them all is the regions’s official site of (ta-dah):
Kootenay Lake — Official Site
www.kootenay-lake.ca
Yikes, how did they come to that conclusion? What bizarre bit of algorithmic processing has prompted Microsoft to decide that a retiree’s hobby site can possibly be the official spokesman for the region?
Now, I suspect that various provincial ministries would justifiably protest my authority to speak officially on behalf of, say, trees, bears, bumble bees, lake levels, soils, or water purity. Yet, I have a face-saving solution for Microsoft: in the absence of staunch opposition, I will allow my site to speak officially on behalf of local rainbows—and just maybe steam devils (below).
Alistair
Microsoft-certified official local spokesman
With all of this in mind, I proclaim my favourite rainbow from this summer to be an officially approved bow.
And I might just push my luck and speak officially on behalf of steam devils also.
