In the early hours of this morning, a small black bear visited a spawning creek. It was certainly not the first bear to visit, only the first I had seen. It tried fishing, but I did not see it catch anything before wandering off.
The black bear pauses while trying to catch fish in the creek. During dips in the water, it hasn’t wetted a small portion of its back, which looks lighter brown.
It tried to capture the redfish Kokanee, but apparently failed.
I particularly enjoy seeing a white-tail buck with antlers. (Well, they are less commonly seen than the females, and more varied.) So when I spotted one this morning, I quietly followed it hoping for a good picture. But, the scene proved quite unexpected. I will show the picture first, and then offer comments.
A white-tailed deer buck with strangely deformed (infected ?) antlers is eating vegetation.
What is odd about them:
a) The left antler seems to be over half-covered with small growths.
b) The right antler has only a small bit of similar growth.
c) There is no sign that there is a link from one deformity to the other.
d) The right antler is an underdeveloped spike, while the left has three tines.
e) Both antlers look as though they have prematurely lost their velvet.
f) I could find no pictures of a condition like this on the Web.
If you have any insights, feel free to offer them.
Ospreys eat fish. They dive into the lake and use their feet to catch a live fish. They capture ten or more fish a day for the period of five or six months that they are here. That is a good number of fish, considering the profusion of ospreys around the lake.
Yet, try to get a good picture of the osprey lifting a fish from the water. It is a big lake, the capture is very fleeting. And when seen, it is usually rather distant. Getting a good picture of the event is, alas, iffy.
I start with one I got seven years ago, but have waited some time to get another good one.
An osprey drags a male Kokanee from the lake on 2018 August 18.
Two days ago, Cynthia caught an osprey emerging from the Lake amidst much spray. One cannot tell yet what it might have caught.
In our most dramatic photograph of the day, Cynthia caught the osprey dragging a fish from the Lake. We thought it would have had a Kokanee. It didn’t. But what is that fish?
A moment later I took this.
A juvenile Great Blue Heron was observed in a pond alongside Kootenay Lake. It was hunting small fish. It caught three of them before flying to the other side.
The heron would quietly stalk a fish. Upon a sighting, the strike took under a tenth of a second. The fish would then be shaken hard to stun it. Finally the heron would open its bill wide (picture shown) and then thrust its head forward to eat it.
Then, the heron decided to try its luck on the other side of the pond.
This morning, I tried to get a shot of an osprey dragging a Kokanee out of the lake. I failed.
But, this shot has to be a close second.
A female Osprey flies off with a female Kokanee salmon.
During their migration period, the Eastern Kingbird is reasonably common around the Lake. The chicks have now fledged, but are still being fed by their parents.
The first two pictures are old and are included to merely set the stage. The rest are from the last couple of days.
On June 21, a parent sits in the nest.
On July 15 the parents are feeding chicks in the nest with a dragonfly.
Now, the chicks are fledged and a parent searches endlessly on the wing for insects.
A parent has caught a dragonfly.
A chick sitting away from the nest opens a wing.
A chick eats a dragonfly that a parent supplied.
Another chick has received a dragonfly from a parent. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.
And proceeds to eat it. Photo by Cynthia.
I didn’t manage a shot of a parent feeding a dragonfly to a chick, but did get one of a parent feeding a snowberry to a chick.
BC gets quite a few dragonflies at this time of year, but as the male and female do not look the same, there are double that number of dragonflies you can see. Here are four that I happened upon in the last few days.
This seems to be a male Autumn Meadowhawk pausing on a perch while still hunting.
A male common white tail rests on the ground.
And a female variegated meadowhawk hunts from a bush.
A male blue-eyed darner hunts on the wing for flying bugs.
A day ago, I posted one picture of two heron chicks in a nest <blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=34785> and said that locally there were, maybe a half-dozen Great Blue Heron nests, but not one was easy to find and all were inaccessibly distant. I revisited the site, but only one nest is marginally photographable. So, here are some more pictures from that nest.
The two heron chicks look at each other.
When they would exercise their wings, they would reveal some white pin feathers on the underside. These feathers are growing and are developing, so have blood flowing through them. The pin feathers are sensitive.
The heron chicks spent much time preening.
In the heat of the day, the chicks panted.
And I just don’t know what is going on here.
Locally, there are maybe a half-dozen Great Blue Heron nests, but none was easy to find and all were inaccessibly distant. One of the nests had two fully grown chicks which spent their time exercising their wings and preening. They will soon fly.
Two Great Blue Heron chicks stand in their nest.
The advantage of photographing a flying bird is that one can often see more of the bird because the wings may be spread.
A female Brewer’s Blackbird flies by.
A Belted Kingfisher flies by.
A Killdeer tried to lead me away from its nest, so I obliged and followed it.
Two postings ago, I showed an osprey carrying a intact fish <blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=34737>. This fish, however, has already had its tasty head eaten by the osprey. This is often the way a fish gets delivered to the nest.
