Category Archives: birds

Flying chips

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Alistair

  A Pileated Woodpecker was flitting from one cavity to the next looking for insects.  Each cavity had been carved in the spring by a nesting flicker, but some were taken over by Tree Swallows. With winter, wood chips fly as former … Continue reading →

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Shooting the messenger

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Alistair

  Margaret Atwood is among the many prominent authors and naturalists who recently sent an open letter to the Oxford University Press. The group expressed its profound alarm at the decline in a child’s awareness of the natural world. The petition … Continue reading →

Posted in birds, commentary, mammals | 10 Comments

Grebe 1, crayfish 0

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Alistair

  Of the four species of grebes that frequent Kootenay Lake, the Pied-billed Grebe is the smallest and least often seen. So, when one is spotted, it is worth watching: Will its underwater foraging produce anything of interest? Thursday’s Pied-billed Grebe … Continue reading →

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White-fronted Goose

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Alistair

  These blog postings usually explore the ordinary. Ordinary doesn’t mean familiar, indeed obscurity often dominates. However, the exploration is ordinary in the sense that it treats locally encountered features. Ordinary doesn’t apply to the solitary Greater White-fronted Goose that … Continue reading →

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Pine Grosbeak

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Alistair

  The Pine Grosbeak is an irruptive species: some years it is here in abundance; other years it is absent. This year it is here. It is easy to spot when it is feasting on rowan berries (mountain ash).  It … Continue reading →

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Bird reprise 2014

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Alistair

  2014 brought this blog a plethora of satisfying bird images. The selected dozen appear chronologically. A male Mountain Bluebird looks at the camera and fluffs its feathers.  A male Wild Turkey displays his finery for the girls. A Bald Eagle took a few … Continue reading →

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Loon of December

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Alistair

  Most loons have left the Lake for the Coast by mid-fall. A few stragglers can sometimes be seen in the winter, but I had not seen one previously. (All my earlier loon pictures were taken from April to October.) In its nonbreeding plumage, … Continue reading →

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Precocious goldeneyes

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Alistair

  The male Common Goldeneye Duck is in his breeding plumage from October to June. That presumably means that he is prepared to breed, not that he is about to breed. So, I thought nothing of it when three strapping … Continue reading →

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Fetching birds

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Alistair

  I usually oblige my camera when it asks to be taken for a walk. Unfortunately, my camera does not always reciprocate my kindness by fetching an interesting variety of subjects. On recent jaunts, it has retrieved only birds, but at least it was fetching fetching birds. A … Continue reading →

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Dipper scoffs eggs

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Alistair

  A dipper sat on the border ice of a creek. It used the ice as a platform to dive for eggs of a Kokanee salmon.  The dipper’s forays were surprisingly successful. The dipper acquired a Kokanee egg on perhaps a … Continue reading →

Posted in birds, fish | 3 Comments