Exploring Kootenay Lake

The Common Loon changes its appearance between the summer, when it is in breeding plumage, and the winter, when it is not. A striking aspect of this is that not only does its plumage change with the season, but so do other features: eyes, bill, and feet.

Guide books comment upon most of these things, but not the feet. After all, who would ever identify a loon by its feet? Indeed, who ever even gets to see a loon’s feet? Well, sometimes the loon shows them. Here are two pictures, the first was taken last year, the second was taken only a few days ago.

In the summer the plumage of the Common Loon is a strongly patterned black and white; the eyes are reddish and the bill is black. The feet are also blackish.

In the winter, the plumage of the Common Loon is a muted grey; the eyes are brownish and the bill grey. The feet have become light grey and pink. It’s as if the red of the summer eyes has drained all the way down to the feet.

Mallards: female in foreground, male in breeding plumage in back

Male Mallard in eclipse plumage; his yellow bill reveals his sex

With a gazillion Mallards around the area, and each one of them moulting twice a year, one might expect to see them undergo this loss and regrowth of feathers with considerable frequency. Yet, I cannot recall having seen a Mallard in the process of moulting prior to Thursday.

When the female Mallard moults, she replaces her worn feathers with new ones having the same pattern. The transition is inconspicuous.

The male, however, switches between his breeding plumage and his eclipse plumage (during which time, he looks like a female). It is a big shift and during the transition, he should look distinctly anomalous.

So, why is this odd duck rarely seen?

Answer: He hides.

When a male Mallard moults, he loses all of his flight feathers simultaneously. His flightless state leaves him particularly vulnerable to predators. So just prior to moulting, he goes into seclusion, often hiding in a marsh. He is loath to reappear until in his breeding finery.

The odd-looking head and neck of Thursday’s male Mallard (foreground) reveals him to be only part way through the moult into breeding plumage. The colourful water results from the reflection of the fall foliage beyond them.

The speculum feathers of various ducks are curious. These are the patches of often iridescent colour on the inner wings of many species of ducks. The colour of speculum (Latin for mirror) feathers differs from one species to another, and the function seems a bit obscure.

Many of the other colourful feathers found on male ducks seem to have evolved in response to the sexual preferences of females. But, breeding preference is unlikely to have influenced speculum feathers, for they appear essentially the same on each sex.

Further, the speculum feathers are not particularly visible unless the duck is flying and then they are most easily seen from behind. It seems likely that the function is primarily that of a signal among flying members of a species so as to maintain the cohesion of a flock.

The blue-purple speculum of the Mallard is seen from behind when the bird is in flight.

The speculum seems to help ducks identify their own species when flying in a flock (birds of a feather…).

This is not how I woud choose to make a living: stand in an icy and turbulent mountain creek while attempting to catch delectables in the water, but this unusual songbird does just that. Hmm, come to think of it, that is roughly how many fly fishermen operate.

Joke’s on me When I posted these pictures of the owl and raven, I thought the protagonist was a Barred Owl (and made a play on the words barred and bard). I was wrong. Two competent birders assure me that the pictures show a Short-eared Owl, a bird both smaller and rarer than the Barred. I have revised the page (and title).

Yesterday, we watched angry birds.

It started when a Common Raven swooped and dived upon some unseen object among the hummocks in a meadow. It was not possible to tell what attracted the raven’s attention until suddenly a Short-eared Owl burst from the grass, a typical habitat for this species.

Why the raven cared about the owl is unclear, but ravens do make a practice of attacking birds of prey.

Once the owl was airborne, the raven chased it mercilessly, but soon…, well, the pictures tell the story.

The Short-eared Owl took to the air.

The Common Raven gave chase.

Deftly, the owl circled and attacked from above.

The owl now chased the raven.

Although half the weight of the raven, the Short-eared Owl was the victor.

Derek Kite took the three pictures which show both birds (his were better than mine). He has given me permission to use them here. 

I have a Ruffed Grouse in my yard. Well, it doesn’t spend all of its time here as the home range of the Ruffed Grouse is perhaps twenty or so hectares. This leaves my yard as but a sliver of its space. Yet, the bird visits regularly, as an earlier posting attests.

A survival strategy of the Ruffed Grouse is to imagine that its variegated plumage enables it to vanish into the background as long as it doesn’t move. The plumage makes for interesting pictures and the stillness makes them easy to take.

Here is yesterday’s grouse. The bird knew I was nearby, but seems to have thought it was invisible.

Last week I took a picture of an eagle at sunrise. That shot was so satisfying that I was unwilling to detract from it with supporting images or text. So, a single unadorned image was posted.

Yet, prior to that picture, the behavior of the eagle in the shifting predawn light was interesting, so with the remove of a few days, here are the earlier pictures.

In the dim twilight, a Bald Eagle finished its breakfast atop an ancient piling.

Sated, the eagle flew down to the water and drank.

It then appeared to be leaving for good.

But, promptly stopped on an adjacent piling to await sunrise—and its portrait.