Exploring Kootenay Lake

The dipper is an unusual songbird. It dives in cold, swift mountain streams for delectables that are usually found on the stream bed. What it eats depends somewhat on the season: often aquatic arthropods in the summer, fish eggs in the fall and winter, and maybe the odd fry when anchor ice might coat the stream bed.

This is the season where a dipper goes after fish eggs, and in Kokanee Creek, this usually means the eggs of the Kokanee salmon. After diving for eggs on the stream bed, a dipper surfaces and usually doesn’t swallow them until perched on a rock, the shore, or border ice.

Kokanee eggs come in two different colours: clear when unfertilized; somewhat golden when fertilized. 

A dipper surfaces with an unfertilized egg of a Kokanee salmon.

A dipper surfaces with two eggs of a Kokanee salmon, one of which may be fertilized.

Although there might be only a few dippers working the same creek, each is remarkably territorial and will aggressively chase rivals. This dipper is doing the chasing.

Swans have white plumage — eh?

The Trumpeter Swan near the mouth of Kokanee Creek is still there. Yestermorn, it was close enough to the shore for a detailed view. 

A striking feature of our subject is that its head and neck are covered with blotchy rusty stains. What has happened to a swan’s canonical snow-white plumage? 

The answer lies in the iron-rich waters and mud that were ingested during foraging at the Arctic breeding grounds. It is oxidized iron that gives some feathers their rusty hue.

Our visiting Trumpeter Swan has been foraging in iron-rich mud.

A migrating Trumpeter Swan is off the mouth of Kokanee Creek. Others have seen one at the Park for a few weeks, but this is my first sighting, albeit it far out on the Lake.

A Mallard couple has promptly taken advantage of the swan’s presence. With its long neck the trumpeter can feed in deeper water than can a dabbling Mallard. But, when the swan stirs up edibles from the bottom, the Mallards can feed in deeper waters. 

The Common Redpoll is an irruptive species: an arctic species that may or may not turn up locally in search of food in any particular year. This winter, they are here. They travel in flocks which descend on seeds. Locally, they seem to be partial to the common tansy, an invasive species.

The name, redpoll, refers to the red cap they sport — poll being an old word for head, as in “take a poll” (count heads), or a “poll tax” (a tax on each head). 

Flocks of the Common Redpoll are visiting the Lake this year. They fly frenetically between feeding on one bush of the (gone to seed) Common Tansy to the next.

While they are named for the red cap on their crowns, they also have distinctive black patterns on their faces that look like the ionizing radiation hazard trefoil with the bird’s bill poking through the centre. Here a redpoll is feasting on tansy seeds.

“I’m off to check out the seeds I see over there.”

It is November and the Hooded Mergansers are courting. This may seem a tad early for such an activity, but hoodies form their pair bonds in the late fall or early winter.

First, we need a base-line look for the pair when it is not courting. The male is on the front right and the female on the back left. The feathers on their heads lie flat. This picture was actually taken when the pair bond seems to have been established, three days after the following shots.

Two males were circling and competing for the female. Each male has erected the crest on his head to show his interest in her. This is probably also a show of aggression towards the other male. Here, the female has not responded by erecting her crest, but she does so after a while. 

Hoodie males show even greater enthusiasm by doing head pumping whereby each silently extends and shortens his neck. Typically, the bird does not face the object of its desire, but presents her with the more enticing side view.

Occasionally the male will rise high in the water.

However, in the most elaborate of the male courtship displays, he keeps his crest erect, throws his head right back, and calls. How could she possibly resist?

I see the Belted Kingfisher perhaps once a week. It is usually just foraging and, after a brief pause, it moves on to a different location to hunt.

Yet, over time one builds up a repertoire of kingfisher behaviour. The first five pictures are old; the last three are from yesterday.

The kingfisher is often seen watching for small fish while perched (2013 Oct. 10).

Or it might be flying (2017 Jul. 30).

Occasionally, the kingfisher is seen to hover over prey (2013 May 26).

Often enough, it manages to catch and consume a small fish (2016 July 25).

Now and then it is seen to squabble with another kingfisher (2016 July 16).

By way of contrast to squabbling, sometimes one can see two of them mate (2017 May 6).

It is not that I doubted that kingfishers pooped, but yesterday was the first observation.

What was unexpected was the sight of a kingfisher casting a pallet (burping up fish bones).

However, the best kingfisher shot of the day was this one.