Exploring Kootenay Lake

Trumpeter Swans visit Kootenay Lake twice a year, but sometimes for an extended time. When two of them stopped by briefly to feed on October 25, they were probably not heading north to breed, but south to winter.

The Trumpeter Swans swimming at the mouth of the creek were likely a mated pair.

The Trumpeter Swan is North America’s largest waterfowl, and our heaviest bird. It therefore takes time to run across the water and pick up enough speed to lift off.

The swans climb to flying altitude. Note the lake water drops being shed.

These two birds are uncommonly seen around here.

I posted a collection of pictures of the Clark’s Nutcracker last week.  This is just a single picture of one of a dozen of them about a half-kilometre from where they were before and 11 days after this high altitude bird was first seen this year in the valley.

This is a Red-necked Grebe in the transition to its non-breeding plumage. Now some websites include us within the range of this bird, although this is the first one I have seen.

The Blue Jay is an eastern bird. One range map marks it as here, but sparsely, another range map doesn’t show it here at all. I have seen one here only once before, some six years ago.

The Blue Jay is a corvid and seems to compete with one of our local corvids, the Steller’s Jay. Each keeps its own territory with the divide being roughly the Rocky Mountains.

A Blue Jay pausing on a branch as it watches a Steller’s Jay.

A little something to eat.
 

“I think that I am a bit out of my natural habitat.”

The Long-billed Dowitcher has now been here for at least three days. I posted some pictures a few days ago: Long-billed Dowitcher, but went back with Cynthia to see it again. Recall, it is mid-migration; it came from the arctic coast and will soon continue south, probably to Mexico. It still has a long way to go. Stopping here, it has spent all of its time just feeding. By Monday (Oct. 7) the bird had gone.

For days, this bird persistently thrust its long bill deep into the muddy floor of a shallow freshwater pond. The pond depth was often 2 to 8 cm, which is ideal for its feeding. The tip of a Long-billed Dowitcher’s bill has receptors that let it locate prey by touch. Seen here, it is sucking some prey up its long bill. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.

Generally, it eats larvae of insects with occasional plant matter and seeds. This is probably an insect larva. Photo by Cynthia.

Because its bill often was deep in sandy muck, seeing it bring something up above water happened quickly and rarely.

Here it took a short break to fluff its feathers. Photo by Cynthia.

Three days of steady eating has made it fatter. This picture shows the dowitcher and its clear reflection in shallow water.

We have four local species of chickadee: Black-capped, Chestnut-backed, Mountain, and Boreal. These are listed in order from common to rare. Nearly four years ago, I saw the Mountain Chickadee for the first time and posted. I encourage opening that posting, https://blog.kootenay-lake.ca/?p=29904, to see how they differ. Briefly, the common Black-capped Chickadee does not have a white bar above its eye.

One possible reason the Mountain Chickadee is rarely seen is that it only comes down from the mountains in the fall. Indeed, my first sighting was in December.

This Mountain Chickadee was with many Black-capped Chickadees scouring for food.