Exploring Kootenay Lake

Shrike’s back

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Alistair

The season is changing, and with it come the migrants: birds that bred farther to the north, and so were absent from here all summer. They now reappear as they move through our area to head south for the winter.

Today, I saw two of these migrants: a Northern Shrike and a White-throated Sparrow. I posted a picture of a Northern Shrike as it headed north in April, but this sparrow was new to me.

This Northern Shrike is a juvenile (hatched this year). Shrikes are songbirds that behave as if they were hawks; they use their hooked bill to tear their prey.

This White-throated Sparrow was seen this morning at Kokanee Creek Provincial Park.

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Odonata passion

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Alistair

Odonata is the order of insects that includes damselflies and dragonflies. Odonata, which as adults live only one to two months, indulge in perhaps the most conspicuous copulation of any insect. September is the time when a casual walk through fields or mashes reveals dozens of them mating, always in their characteristic wheel formation. Last year’s posting on this topic, sex in the park, only showed dragonflies. Below are examples of both dragonfly mating and damselfly mating.

Saffron-winged meadowhawks are dragonflies. The male (red, on top) has grasped the female by the back of her head. Characteristic of dragonflies, she holds onto his abdomen and swings her abdomen up to receive sperm.

Spotted spreadwings are damselflies. The male (blueish, on top) has grabbed the female by the neck. Characteristic of damselflies, she has grabbed her own abdomen when she swung her abdomen up to him to receive sperm. This version of the wheel position looks rather like a heart.

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Fiery sunrise

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Alistair

The rather wet spring has protected us from most forest fires this summer, although there have been a few minor ones. At the moment, there is small fire in the Purcell Mountains (adjacent to Sphinx Mountain) on the east side of the Lake. As seen from the West Arm, the Sun appears orange as it rises through the smoke. People in industrial settings may be used to such colours, but given the normal clarity of the atmosphere around here, we are not. The event is illustrated, not with a picture of the Sun, itself, but with one of the Sun’s reflection on the rippled waters.

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Losing velvet

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Alistair

Velvet is the soft downy skin that covers a deer’s antlers when they are growing. A month ago, I posted a picture of this same buck in velvet. In late summer, the velvet dries and peals, and while it does so, the antlers look quite shaggy. The velvet will soon be gone.

Early this morning, a white-tailed buck displayed velvet hanging in tatters from its antlers.

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Kingfisher

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Alistair

Herons and kingfishers are both long-billed birds that will stand in one spot and watch for fish to capture. Yet, they have apparently adopted different fishing strategies, and this makes one easy to observe and the other difficult.

A heron’s strategy seems to be to wait for a fish to come to it—it is the model of patience. A kingfisher’s strategy seems to be to actively search for fish—if it sees nothing at one place, it quickly looks elsewhere.

This morning a male Belted Kingfisher stayed in one spot long enough for a picture, but not much longer.

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Aestivation’s over

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Alistair

“Look daddy, a butterfly” was all I overheard as a little girl and her father cycled by. She had, indeed, seen a butterfly—a mourning cloak.

There are quite a few mourning cloaks around now that August is over. These beautiful butterflies prefer somewhat cooler conditions and so they aestivate when the weather is hot and dry. Aestivation (from the Latin word for summer, aestas) is a hibernation-like period of dormancy in response to high temperatures and low humidity. Mourning cloaks aestivate, but they are now back in goodly numbers.

Incidentally, mourning cloaks not only aestivate in the summer, they also hibernate in the winter. If the weather is not just as they like it, they close down.

This is the mourning cloak spotted by a little girl on a bicycle.

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Two-bear day

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Alistair

There are two species of bear found around here (and throughout most of the Province): grizzly bear and black bear. On Sunday, I managed to photograph each species.

Grizzly bear

Black bear

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A myth isn’t born

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Alistair

In March of 2011, I captured a picture of the rarely seen three-legged killdeer. Last Saturday, I captured a picture of the rarely seen three-legged heron—this time in flight. Both pictures are below.

Would such observations be sufficient to enable the more excitable local promoters to launch a mythology around three-legged birds? Perhaps not, the Okanagan’s ogopogo myth feeds upon crummy pictures, not good ones (see my own pictures of the Ogopogo).

The three-legged killdeer seen in March 2011

The three-legged heron seen in September, 2012

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Deer making its bed

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Alistair

Doug Thorburn sent me these pictures of a mule deer buck preparing its bed. Neither of us had previously seen a deer do such a thing. It repeatedly scraped its fore hoof across the dirt until the ground was smooth and cleared of small sticks and rocks. It then lay down.

The pictures were taken in Kokanee Glacier Park a couple of weeks ago.

The first two pictures show the hoof being moved forward and back as it prepares the ground.