Exploring Kootenay Lake

The Northern Rough-winged Swallow is a winter resident of extreme southern U.S., Mexico, and Central America. But in the summer months, this insectivore is here. It is a plain bird that often goes unnoticed while its brighter-coloured companion swallows stand out. Yet, its numbers are comparable to that of other swallows.

But, the plainness of the Rough-winged doesn’t seem to account for the disparity of observations of it by comparison to Tree Swallows. I have only a handful of observations of Rough-winged compared to the myriad of ones of Tree Swallows including ones of them mating and feeding young. No, the disparity seems to be mainly a result of where it nests and human convenience. It nests in bank burrows, unlike Tree Swallows that favour accessible human-made structures.

The Northern Rough-winged Swallow eats insects which it catches on the wing.

Its feathers are fairly plain.

And it spends a great deal of time on the wing.

On a walk yesterday, I saw two large birds that acted differently to my presence. Both flew off as I walked by on the beach, but the juvenile Bald Eagle quickly came back for a closer look at the human. The juvenile Great Blue Heron was not curious at all and just left.

I have previously noticed this pattern with a number of  recently fledged raptors. They are curious about people. A just-fledged eagle at first flew off, but promptly returned and flew past me to take a closer look.

A first-season heron was not the least bit curious about the human and just flew off.

While watching birds, it is not uncommon to see one poop. It takes the form of a whitish fluid which is a mixture of solid and liquid waste. It is not urine.

Although, I have long watched local hummingbirds, I have never seen them discharge anything — nothing. That is, until this last week when my camera caught various hummingbirds discharging a liquid.

But, it was different than that of other birds: it was drops of a mainly clear liquid. Turns out that the primary foodstuff eaten by a hummingbird is nectar (sugar water). They extract the sugar from the nectar and expel the excess as urine. 

A male Black-chinned Hummingbird pees.

The male Black-chinned Hummingbird was still hanging around a bit earlier this week. It has stayed longer than usual, possibly due to the frequent smoke in the air.

In addition there are female Rufous Hummingbirds and female Black-chinned Hummingbirds around for they are still raising their chicks.

The male Black-chinned Hummingbird was still here on August 5th.

A female Black-chinned Hummingbird has spread its tail.

Similarly a female Rufous Hummingbird has spread it tail.

It is a bit surprizing to see the spots on the rufous females neck light up.

Three ibises have visited a lagoon on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. They appear to all be juvenile White-faced Ibises.

Now, this is exceedingly rare. There appear to be only two times before that a similar visit has happened anywhere in the Central Kootenay. Range maps show a very small breeding population in extreme southern Alberta and that is it for all of Canada.

The three ibises seemed to ignore humans, although whether that is their nature, or because they are young, or because we were quiet and distant isn’t clear. Rather, they spent their time feeding, using their long beaks to probe the bottom of the lagoon.

At one point, all three gathered on the far side of the lagoon.

But, most of the time, two stuck together as they probed the bottom with their bills. The third ibis generally wandered about the lagoon on its own. It is seen below, flying.

If getting decent pictures of an exceeding rare bird were not enough, consider the likelihood of also getting a close shot of one of them lifting off.

In fact, the unusualness of this demanded another view slightly later in the flight.