Exploring Kootenay Lake

If this issue has been settled, I don’t know about it. The issue concerns an osprey’s fidelity. Certainly, an osprey seems to mate for life, but is it being loyal to its mate or do both partners merely return to the same nest site each summer?

The question of osprey loyalty is one that might take many observations or experiments to answer. The answer is of interest around Kootenay Lake, which has an unusually high summer incidence of ospreys.

Today’s observations merely attests to osprey loyalty. It gives no insight into the reason for this loyalty, for an osprey had returned to the same nest as the previous year. 

I took this picture beside one of my favourite osprey nests in May of last year (2015). This osprey bears a band on its left leg — something rarely seen on local ospreys.

Today, I visited the same nest and photographed an osprey with, presumably, the same banding on its left leg. There is a loyalty to something.

For many weeks, I have been watching a dipper nest as I wait for the chicks first to arrive and then be old enough to peek from the nest as they are being fed. 

By displaying their yellow gapes, the chicks tell a parent: feed me. 

Locally, we get two species of waxwings: Bohemian Waxwings in the winter; Cedar Waxwings in the summer. Bohemians course about in large flocks (see, waxing alliteratively, Bohemian Waxwings). Cedars are here to breed and so don’t move about in the same numbers.

The first Cedar Waxwing spotted yesterday was a fledgling. It lacked the silky feathers of an adult.

An adult flew in.

Cedar Waxwings are not seen locally in large flocks, but a few hang out together. Easily seen are the red waxy tips to the wing feathers after which waxwings are named.

This is the season of chicks. Three weeks ago, a male Wild Turkey treated us to its display. Now a female shows off her chicks. Ron Welwood sent me this picture taken in his yard.

Ron Welwood’s picture is used with permission.

I had been watching a sapsucker surveying its trees (image right) when I realized that there was something even more interesting in the vicinity: Chestnut-backed Chickadees were ferrying grubs to their cavity nest. Although the chicks have yet to be seen, the feeding behaviour was unmistakable. 

This picture is a composite of two shots of the same chickadee first bringing a grub to its nest, and then, flying off to fetch more. Parenthood is an unending job of providing food and comfort.

The previous day had been sunny. I initially thought that there was only a single bird flying in to feed a mate that was incubating eggs. This speculation was abandoned when both mates were seen coming and going with food. Clearly, ravenous chicks had hatched.

The parents were often seen together as they tended the nest.