Exploring Kootenay Lake

Spider 1, Ant 0

Posted on June 9, 2019 by Alistair

An ant likes nectar, but being a crawling insect, its ability to forage on many flowers is limited. That is, unless it is a flying ant, and can quickly move from one flower to the next. The problem, though, is that sooner or later, there will be a flower hiding a killer, a crab spider.

A crab spider is an ambush predator that waits patiently on a flower for its meal to arrive. The spider grabs the prey with front legs and delivers a deadly dose of venom through its fangs. The venom’s effects are twofold: It paralyzes the insect; It digests the insect’s insides. The spider then uses its fangs like a straw to drink the insect’s insides.

A female crab spider (Misumena vatia) drinks the already digested insides of a flying ant.

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Tadpoles aplenty

Posted on June 8, 2019 by Alistair

A posting a month ago showed western toads in amplexus along with strings of eggs. It can hardly be a surprise to now see the fruits of that conjugation in the form of hundreds of tadpoles.

In the shallows there were numerous tiny tadpoles.

Adjacent to them was a mass of tadpoles sufficient to obscure the lake bottom.

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Four dipper chicks

Posted on June 5, 2019 by Alistair

There is a dipper’s nest under a highway bridge. The nest has been featured here in other years: 2016, 2015. Over the winter, the nest was damaged, but the dippers still used it.

Dipper parents frequently brought things to the nest. Sometimes it was moss to repair the nest, as the dipper in the upper left is doing. Sometimes it was food to feed the chicks, as dipper in the lower right is doing. However, if only one parent flew in and did repairs, the chicks complained bitterly about being slighted.

Although only three chicks were visible in the previous image, this shot shows four.

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Now there are three

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Alistair

Our local Great Horned Owl has received recent postings: Great Horned Owl, Then there were two. Now, the third owlet has appeared.

As the interval between laying one egg and the next is a few days for the Great Horned Owl, the resulting hatched owlets are of different ages and fledge at different times.

The mother Great Horned Owl sat in a nearby tree.

Owlet, number one, has now gained adult plumage, fledged, and sits in an adjacent tree.

Owlets numbers three (left) and two (right) are still looking over the edge of the nest.

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Mountain lady’s slipper

Posted on June 1, 2019 by Alistair

This is the third wild orchid found in the last few weeks. The first was the fairy slipper; second was the striped coralroot; this time it is the mountain lady’s slipper.

Two mountain lady’s slippers in the forest.

Posted in wildflowers | 5 Comments

May goulash

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Alistair

This is a collection of some of May’s images that did not have postings of their own.

A honey bee has collected pollen from a wild rose, and is carrying it as a packet on its hind leg. Honey bees have been rare in my yard for a decade, but this spring they are common. Has a neighbour started an apiary?

Kingbirds are classified as flycatchers, but this warm-season predator eats various flying insects.

Here, an Eastern Kingbird has landed in a bush. The captured wasp was quickly eaten.

A Killdeer, which seems to be breeding nearby, grabs a grub from the Lake.

The forest floor is becoming decorated with queen’s cups.

This white-tailed buck must have felt trapped for it rushed past me with its tail raised as a flag.

This was an unexpected sighting: A Wilson’s Snipe perched atop a five-metre snag. Usually this snipe hides under low vegetation alongside water. Why was it suddenly being ostentatious?

A female Varied Thrush seems to be hanging out in my yard. Does she have a nest? Also, the whitish bar on the head is a tad unusual. It is usually orange.

“Humans describe me as yellow bellied, but I think mine is a lovely shade of apricot.”

A Great Horned Owl takes a moment to preen.

I am playing the cuteness card with a shot of a Great Horned Owlet peaking out from its nest.

Posted in birds, bugs, mammals, wildflowers | 9 Comments

Striped Coralroot

Posted on May 27, 2019 by Alistair

The striped coralroot orchid is my second sighting of a wild orchid this year. The first was of the fairy slipper. OK, truth be told, I did not find this orchid on my own: a small child spotted it — who told an adult — who told me. So kudos to the child.

My first images of the striped coralroot orchid were acceptable, but because the flowers drooped on the raceme, it was difficult to look into them.

So, I tried again, this time moving the camera lower. Now the bilateral symmetry and the enlarged petal that are characteristics of an orchid is obvious.

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Then there were two

Posted on May 24, 2019 by Alistair

Yesterday, I posted pictures of Great Horned Owls and their owlet. Today, there are two owlets. Might tomorrow bring three?

Two Great Horned Owlets look out from their nest.

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Great Horned Owlet

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Alistair

The Great Horned Owl is widely spread across North America. It is also fairly common, yet not particularly easy to find. There is, however, a local nest site that had been used other years. It merited exploratory visits.

With the Great Horned, both parents attend the nest, and as far as I can tell, both have been seen, but on different occasions. They have two owlets, but I have only seen one.

This is one of the parents.