Exploring Kootenay Lake

I spent a few hours rambling among raptors. While many were seen perched, this posting favours raptors seen flying.

We have two resident falcons, each of which was seen. This is the smaller; it is a male kestrel.

Slightly larger than the kestrel is the Merlin. It did fly, but I missed it.

The largest raptor seen was the Bald Eagle.

I managed no particularly good shots of a flying Rough-legged Hawk. This one will have to suffice.

However, when perched, this same female rough-legged posed for me.

This is a bit of an oddity. I believe it to be a dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk. Across the continent, the plumage of this bird is highly variable, although the dark morph is uncommon here.

My favourite flight shot of the ramble was of the more common local form of Red-tailed Hawk. This is a juvenile bird: the red of its tail has yet to develop and its eyes are yellow.

The first time I saw a Wild Turkey in a tree was only a month ago. While they do roost in trees overnight, and some subscribers commented that they see them there regularly, I had only seen these birds when they were foraging on the ground.

However, this last weekend I happened upon many turkeys flying in and out of trees.

Three are seen here. 

One turkey was off on its own.

It had spectacularly spread its wings and tail while flying in.

How can one distinguish one Canada Goose in a flock of a few hundred? It is easy if that goose is leucistic. 

A leucistic animal is one where some region of its pelage lacks pigment. It is not an albino, which describes a complete lack of pigment throughout the body. For the leucistic animal, the pigment loss is just local. 

A leucistic female Canada Goose has been seen around the Lake for over a half-dozen years, but I last saw it four years ago. As the Canada Goose can live for a couple of dozen years, we may continue to see her for a while longer.

A Canada Goose — nicknamed Lucy for being leucistic — was spotted along the shore among other geese. Her normally whiteish chinstrap is slightly beige, but her leucistic cap lacks all pigment.

This is a collection of images none of which has had a posting of its own. The first two are actually neglected pictures left over from October. The final three were taken this November.

A robin feeds on elderberries.

A Great Blue Heron lands on a rock in the water.

Male Bufflehead Ducks take off.

A Trumpeter Swan lifts its head out of the water as it feeds.

Had I not just photographed this dipper today, it would have deserved its own posting. After hunting on a creek bed, the dipper surfaced with an unfertilized Kokanee egg balanced on its tongue. The egg was promptly swallowed.

I saw three shrikes yesterday, but it was shrike #3 that puzzled me.

The Northern Shrike is a raptor-like songbird that is around here in the cold season. However, it is not particularly common, so I was unfamiliar with last bird seen.

The first shrike, seen in the morning, was perched on a power wire.

The second shrike, seen at noon, was in a tree.

However, in mid-afternoon, a brownish bird was spotted. It had the strike’s hooked bill, but it lacked a prominent black mask. It turns out to be an immature Northern Shrike.

I have occasionally attended a turkey roast, but this was the first time I had seen a turkey roost.

Wild turkeys are not native to this region (when I was a child, there were none to be seen). However, hunting lobbies persuaded Washington State (to our immediate south) to introduce them in the 1960s, and an aggressive introduction program began in the mid-1980s. From there, turkeys spread, first into Idaho, and then into BC. 

While local hunters are allowed to bag them, most people view Wild Turkeys as a curiosity, and maybe a nuisance when they block highways and forage on lawns.

Wild Turkeys do not feed at night, but roost in trees as a protection from predators. It might therefore seem that it would be common to see the turkeys roosting. Alas, they seem to arise earlier in the morning than I do, and I hadn’t seen one in a tree until this morning.

Seen first were many Wild Turkeys along the highway.

However, one holdout was seen still roosting in a tree.

The large local flocks of Canada Geese sometimes contain surprises: vagrant species that have joined them after having wandered far from their own migrating flocks. The Canada Geese don’t seem to mind, but it is unclear how each manages to recognize the other as kin.

A juvenile Greater White-fronted Goose is feeding alongside Canada Geese.

It is harder to distinguish between a Canada Goose and a Cackling Goose. They are similar, but the Cackling is smaller, and with a short neck and bill.

The life of a Barrow’s Goldeneye Duck is not exclusively one of enjoying the delights of feasting and mating.

What started as a tranquil scene of a dozen Barrow’s feeding in the shallows was interrupted. As if from a shared signal, all abruptly started running across the water and took flight. Nothing appeared to have caused the disruption — nothing, that is until moments later, an eagle flew low overhead.

A view into the ducks as they took to the air where they wouldn’t make as easy prey for an eagle. The ducks had spotted danger early enough to escape.

Fifteen seconds after the ducks took flight, an foiled eagle looked down on where they had been.

The Audubon Society tells us that Barrow’s Goldeneyes are “found mainly in wild country of northwestern North America”. Chuckle, as the Barrow’s is fairly common here, apparently Audubon’s boffins suspect we lack roads.

An obviously bonded pair of Barrow’s Goldeneyes travelled together along the waterfront. 

At one point he approached her using a courting display of pumping his head. It is not yet mid-November, yet Cornell’s allaboutbirds.org insists that “males begin courtship” in December.

Soon afterwards, he was on her pulling himself in to mate by tugging on her head. Although it is not yet winter, allaboutbirds.org also tells us that “winter [occurs] well before breeding season”.

After consummation, he seemed reluctant to let her go, and continued to hold her.

They separated, but did not part. These birds chose to make love rather than follow the manual.