-
Recent Posts
- Two birds, black & blue
- Flickers mate in midair?
- Lunar eclipse, red with blue
- White-winged Crossbill
- Killdeer mid-Feb
- Trumpeter Swans a plenty
- Ice blocks on pond
- Muskrats
- Trumpeter family
- Icicles
- Dippers fighting
- Then there were two
- Tundra and Trumpeter
- Turkey display
- Fencing, whitetails
- Combative female whitetails
- Birds and berries
- Squirrel provisioning
- Horned Lark
- Black bears
- Grizzly sow & cub
- Eagles
- Two uncommon birds
- Steam devil
- Otter visit
- Squirrel’s find
- Canada Jay
- Black bear
- Feeding on spawners
- Pileated Woodpecker
- Red Crossbill and Pine Siskin
- Osprey and fish
- Sabine’s still here and
- Harrier chasing
- Juvenile Bald Eagle
- Sabine’s Gull
- Bear and fish
- Heron and
- Pileated Woodpecker
- Bear fishing
- Odd antlers
- Osprey captures
- Heron and fish
- Osprey and Kokanee
- Kingbird chicks
- Four dragonflies
- Heron nest, more
- Heron nest
- Flying birds
- Grizzlies
Archives
Categories
Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Category Archives: birds
Great Horned Heron
Ok, I admit it: there is no such species of bird as the Great Horned Heron. However, ornithologists have a habit of suggesting that a species is horned when it sports tufts of feathers on the head. They have done … Continue reading
Posted in birds
3 Comments
Bird counting
I am not a bird counter; but, I like to hang out with those who are. These are the people whose knowledge of birds is so good that they can identify a bird by a whispered sound, a distant silhouette, … Continue reading
Posted in birds, commentary, weather
Comments Off on Bird counting
Just wanna be me
Consider the identity problem faced by a female wigeon within this mêlée of coots, wigeons, mallards, and scaups. Hey, I’m me.
Posted in birds
2 Comments
Trumpeter Swans
It is a delight to watch Trumpeter Swans. They are beautiful, big, and have recently returned from near extinction. Size The Trumpeter Swan is the largest species of native waterfowl in North America. It is considerably bigger than its cousin, the … Continue reading
Posted in birds
3 Comments
Dipper’s comestible
Dippers, the only aquatic songbird, prefer cold, fast-flowing, streams where they mainly eat invertebrates found on the stream bottom. On Sunday, a half-dozen dippers were scouring the waters of Kokanee Creek below the spawning channel when one surfaced with a … Continue reading
Wigeon endearment
Wigeons begin to pair bond in the winter and some along Nelson’s waterfront are already travelling in pairs and exchanging endearments. Endearments? What form might those take among ducks? A common one seems to be wing-flapping. This is a … Continue reading
Posted in birds
4 Comments
Western grebes
A dozen or more Western Grebes have been hanging around in the waters off the Nelson airport. This group has sometimes been accompanied by other species, but the dominant presence is that of the Western. Here are three pictures … Continue reading
Posted in birds
Comments Off on Western grebes
Nelson’s waterfowl
I don’t understand why the Nelson waterfront consistently has a much richer range of waterfowl than can be seen elsewhere along the lakeshore. In the last few days, in addition to the usual mallards and geese, there have been: three … Continue reading
Posted in birds
4 Comments
Dipper dipping
I saw my first American Dipper in Kokanee Creek some years ago. Since then I have seen them there, along the lakeshore, and in alpine lakes. However, these pictures were again taken at Kokanee Creek. The dipper is an unusual … Continue reading
Posted in birds
Comments Off on Dipper dipping
Iconic birds
A news story surfaced this last summer about Nelson’s acquisition of a heron sculpture by Jock Hildebrand, an illustration of which appears on his website. When installed, it will join Nelson’s osprey sculpture and a heron atop a weathervane in Procter. A … Continue reading →