Exploring Kootenay Lake

The battle went on for about ten minutes: a crow took on a Bald Eagle.

But the eagle didn’t try to tackle the crow, it just kept flying away.

Eagles generally like to raid the nests of others for food (now is the time for this) and crows do not like to lose their chicks, so crows actually tackle eagles and drive them off. The odd thing is that the eagle, a bigger more powerful bird, just flies away and avoids the fight. 

Now, it has been said that the eagle cannot be bothered to fight back, for it might be injured. But, the eagle will fight back with a bird that is closer to its own size, such as a osprey. Why then does it not want to tackle a much smaller crow? It is likely that, being smaller, the crow is much more manoeuvrable than the eagle, and so the risk to the eagle is correspondingly greater.

A crow drives off a juvenile Bald Eagle.

We are about as far north as the Bobolink gets in our region of British Columbia. It has travelled here from central South America to breed. Seen yesterday morning was a male, but I haven’t yet seen the female.

The male Bobolink was singing as it perched on a bush in the grasslands of Kokanee Park.

It flew off, but only to a nearby bush.

It turned out that there were two birds close to one another and I sometimes followed the wrong one. The other was an Eastern Kingbird. Here, it is flying off.

Amazingly, a Cattle Egret appeared in Nelson yesterday. It was well outside its normal range. It was also in its breeding plumage. 

I have seen the Cattle Egret once before, but a long way from here. It was (appropriately) feeding on cattle’s parasites. I start with an earlier picture because it is seen here in its non-breeding plumage.

A Cattle Egret on cattle in Maui in November 2016 lacks its breeding plumage.

A Cattle Egret in Nelson in breeding plumage was first spotted by Sachi Snively.

It spreads its wings in peparation to flying.

And takes to the air, but does not go far. Photo by Dorothy.

Three weeks ago, I posted pictures of our three hummingbirds. The males arrived first and of the three, two were illustrated with iridescent chins (blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=34515). 

Now, the females are here, but one species, the calliope, has not returned. So, this posting will show just the rufous and the black-chinned. However, a female is shown, and the male appears with and without displaying its chin’s iridescence. 

First is the rufous, then the black-chinned.

The male Rufous Hummingbird is normally seen with a simple black chin.

But, when it is seen opposite the sun, its chin turns an iridescent orange.

The female shows a series of spots on the chin that occasionally are iridescent.

Usually, the male Black-chinned Hummingbird is seen without iridescence.
 

But, when opposite the sun, its lower chin lights up in iridescent violet.

Our female Black-chinned Hummingbird has practically no chin adornments.

Twelve years ago, I wrote a post about birds and pilings (blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=8842). In it, I noted that many birds like the wooden pilings and often rest on them and even nest in them. For these birds, wooden pilings provide a refuge from many predators and a good view of the lake and adjacent shore. For people close to the lakeshore, this also provides them with a entertaining view. On wooden pilings, I have seen many ducks, geese, raptors, woodpeckers, swallows, corvids, herons, kingfishers, and gulls. What is not to like? 

But some time ago, people began to shift from wooden to metal pilings which have both the advantage of lasting longer and disadvantage of being unfriendly to birds. The latter has a conical top upon which the only bird I have seen capable of sitting there is a kingfisher. Now, many years later, I watched another bird try: a Great Blue Heron. It wobbled, couldn’t get a grip, and left again about one second later. Sigh.

A juvenile Great Blue Heron fails to perch on a metal piling and promptly leaves.