Exploring Kootenay Lake

A killdeer nest is merely a shallow depression on open ground. This killdeer really looked as if it were nesting.

And it behaved as if it were nesting. Upon spotting me, it got up and wandered a short distance and waited for me to follow. We played this game three times before I decided that it would now be satisfied that it had lured me away from its nest; it had. I left without disturbing it further, and so did not discover if there were eggs. Unfortunately, I know that the killdeer’s location will be underwater in a few weeks.

As songbirds go, the dipper is a maverick: it flies underwater to forage on the bed of cold and turbulent mountain streams. It takes the cold and wet in its stride.

Yet, when it builds its nest, the dipper seeks shelter and comfort. The nest is a dome with the opening on the side, so it is one of the few covered bird nests. There is the added protection from weather by (often) building the nest on the girders under a bridge. The spot chosen for this nest is high above the creek in a location inaccessible to land predators. Joanne Siderius has pointed out that the dipper couple had just built this nest because last year’s was destroyed (removed?) over the winter.

Here, the male is bringing food to the female while she incubates the eggs (Derek Kite’s picture).

When not foraging or bringing food to the nest, the male stands guard below it on a rock in the creek.

Derek Kite’s picture of the feeding is used with permission.

Tree Swallows are here in good numbers. They are waging war over nesting sites with one another and with flickers. In the midst of the battles, some seem to have taken a break to mate.

That Tree Swallows are fleet of wing is an understatement. Often this aerial speed and agility is devoted to hawking insects. On this occasion, it was devoted to conflict and love.

The term, acrobatic, is sometimes used to describe the manoeuvres of Tree Swallows, but acrobatic falls short of capturing the rapidity and agility of their flight.

Males are the first to arrive from migration. In this encounter it almost looks as if the female (left) is denouncing the male (right) for not already having secured her a nesting cavity. Or they may be fighting for the same spot.

The object of much of the combat was a group of pilings in which flickers had carved cavities. There is a cavity in this piling that the Tree Swallows have used other years, but must fight for again. 

The fight isn’t just between various swallows. Here, a male swallow is making one of many challenges to a female Northern Flicker. She is looking out of the coveted nesting cavity, that, after all, had been carved by a flicker. The following morning, the flicker was still ensconced in the cavity.

In the midst of all the fighting, one couple chose to make love (the upper bird is the male). After recording this, I wondered, do Tree Swallows really mate during flight? A Web search of “Tree Swallows mating” only revealed shots where the female was perched—but then, perched mating would be a vastly easier picture to take.

There has been a sprinkling of observations of Ospreys around the Lake in the last little while. It is April and males have started to appear; Soon females will return. 

The first osprey I have seen this year is shown below. It is on the nest erected by Nelson Hydro and equipped with a camera by Columbia Wireless. This is the nest that last year, a chick, dubbed Nel, was orphaned, sent to rehabilitation at Coast, and subsequently returned and released at Kokanee Creek Park.

With luck things will go better at this nest this season, and maybe Columbia Wireless will allow us to watch it all on line.