Exploring Kootenay Lake

“Look, I know my phone is around here someplace, so keep looking.”

The month and year end with a contrast: a goshawk and a goose.

The goshawk is an opportunistic predator that takes small mammals and birds often on the edge of forests. Its name means goose hawk, and apparently it will go after geese. I see a goshawk perhaps once a year.

A goshawk may be uncommon, but a goose is not. It is so common as to be almost boring — except for one leucistic female. Her lack of a pigmented crown and nape makes her identifiable. She is an individual and clearly deserves a name. How about Lucy? It is for leucistic (making her full name, Lucy Goosey, chuckle). When seen first in March 2012, Lucy already had a mate so she was probably hatched two or three years earlier. She was seen with chicks in June 2014. Canada Geese mate for life and can live for two dozen years. As Lucy is now five or six years old, there may be many more years of Lucy watching — as long as she avoids our local goshawk.

In the winter, I watch berry-laden trees because they are beloved by the fruit-eating birds I would photograph.

I am not the only one to realize the appeal of such trees for small birds — so do owls.

Therefor, in addition to watching berry-laden trees, I now also search nearby for those watchful owls.

A Northern Pygmy Owl watches from high above a rowan tree. Apparently, it and I both like the same little birds.

A Varied Thrush scarfs rowan berries.

A male Pine Grosbeak chows down on crab apples.

A robin contemplates plentitude.

A male Pine Grosbeak munches crab apples.

A female Pine Grosbeak twists to reach the berries.

A Townsand’s Solitaire eats a cultivar.

A male Pine Grosbeak twists to reach crab apples.

I have watched a number of feasting animals — birds, bears, coyotes, deer, wasps, spiders — and at no time have the words, picky eater, sprung to mind. That is, with one exception: a dipper. 

An uncommon bird of western North America, the American Dipper can sometimes be found hunting in clear, fast-moving mountain streams. Fortunately, I live near a creek where there is often a concentration of dippers (eight seen last Saturday), so I get to watch its behaviour. This easy access to the bird has enabled me to write an article for the BC Field Ornithologists about the way dippers handle surface and anchor ice in cold weather: dippers and ice. I have even watched it tending its chicks. 

The dipper is an unusual songbird. It flies underwater to capture aquatic larva and fish eggs from the creek bed. Occasionally it will even capture fry swimming within the stream.  About a year ago, I was watching a dipper collect kokanee eggs from the creek bed and was struck by the fact that it would retrieve a group of them, but would then place them on a surface so it could eat them one at a time. 

This time, I was struck by the dipper’s behaviour where it would retrieve a clutch of kokanee eggs, but not swallow them upon bringing them to the surface. Rather, it would pause and examine them.

As before, it would first place them on a surface.

It then tried to pick them up one at a time, but unfortunately they were clumped together. So it tried to separate the eggs by twisting and shaking its head. Why it had to eat them individually rather than all at once is unclear. But, having failed to separate them, it then put them down on the rock again.

Oh well, it is time to start all over again. It stuck its head back in the water and this time seems to have grabbed a grub. Food must be plentiful for it to afford to be so picky.

The Common Redpoll is a finch of the Arctic tundra that now and then comes south in the winter to feed. I previously saw them nearly four years ago. I start with a picture from then which enables me to poll both redpoll frequency and evolving image quality. 

Of course, I wondered what was the relationship between the words redpoll and poll (as in, take a). Poll is a middle English word meaning head. That accounts for the name of a bird with a red crown. The modern use of the word, poll, comes from the idea of a head count.

A Common Redpoll forages for seeds on January 27, 2012. Obtaining a good picture of such a frenetic bird is always a matter of happenstance, but clearly this image is not as detailed as are yesterday’s, below.

This is one of three female redpolls seen yesterday. The out-of-focus background is lakeshore snow and water. I wonder if this will prove a good winter for seeing redpolls.

Here is a detail of the red poll of a redpoll.

“I’m outa here.”

I have seen few birds around of late. While the geese remain plentiful, ravens seem sparse. Even trees with red berries seem to get few visitors. However, a few did come.

This is a Pine Grosbeak female feasting on rowan berries. I waited for more to turn up; they did not.

A Townsend’s Solitaire was helping itself to some berries from a unknown cultivar.

“I could lead a sleigh.”