Exploring Kootenay Lake

Despite having gone for a number of walks in fields and forest of late, I have seen little in the trees of feathered interest. Today, I was merely running errands, but packed my camera out of habit.

Unexpectedly, I saw an owl and three woodpeckers: Northern Pygmy Owl, Northern Flicker (a woodpecker), Pileated Woodpecker, and Downy Woodpecker. There was also a Bald Eagle, but I was too busy with the more interesting Downy to bother with it.

Moral: pack a camera.

This is hardly the best picture of a Northern Pygmy Owl I have taken, but it was the first since March, 2011, so I was pleased.

The owl may be infrequent, but the flicker is common.  I include today’s picture only to complete the set and mark this as a three-woodpecker day.

The Pileated Woodpecker is our largest woodpecker. This male has been drilling holes in the tree looking for bugs that might have bedded down for the winter.

In striking contrast to the pileated is our smallest woodpecker, the Downy. It presented me with the best views of the day, so I show two of them. First a profile,

and then a view of its backside. This bird is also a male.

The British Columbia Field Ornithologists (BCFO) have a number of good bird photographers among their members. On November 12^th, the organization began featuring those members and a selection of their bird pictures taken within the province. The first bird photographer chosen was Laure Neish. I am delighted on a couple of counts.

First, I am pleased to see a naturalist’s organization treat nature photography in a more thoughtful manner than the frequent approach of considering it to be a competitive activity appropriate for a (rights-grabbing) contest. Featuring the works of a keen bird photographer is a superb way to familiarize others with this fascinating face of the natural world.

Second, I am delighted with the initial choice of Laure Neish. It was her images that I first studied when I began to take pictures of birds, myself.

I am not a member of the BCFO, yet I was fascinated by the challenge faced by its featured members: out of a myriad images of birds, choose only a handful of favourites to display.

If I were to face such a challenge, which of my bird pictures would I pick?

I pondered; I posted. Here is a favourite dozen of the bird pictures I have taken in the last few years—not from across BC, but merely from around Kootenay Lake. They are presented only approximately in the order of my increasing enthusiasm.

There are loons on Kootenay Lake for most of the year, but they are infrequent: I usually only see them well offshore in the early dawn light. Now and then I manage a satisfactory closer image; this is one.

Owls are far from an everyday local observation. I have seen only three species around here (other birders have had more luck). This Northern Pygmy Owl seems to have its head on backwards. Actually, owls have great dexterity and can turn their heads to look behind themselves.

I had seen pictures of the courting rituals of the hooded merganser, but I hadn’t expected to see the event. This is a male hoodie expressing his love for a nearby damsel: he erects his crest, tips his head back, and calls to her. 

The Merlin is a falcon. It perches high in a tree and watches for smaller birds to capture and consume. This one with the impressive cloak of feathers is a male.

The Pine Grosbeak is one of the irruptive finches—it is not seen every year but now and then it flows out of the north in considerable numbers and feasts on local berries. I rather like the red on red of the bird and the berries.

I am partial to this Ruffed Grouse, not only because of its impressively variegated plumage, but because I consider it a friend—it hangs around my yard.

The Wood Duck displays spectacularly iridescent colours—particularly when it raises its wings.

Although not seen as often as an eagle or an osprey, the Red-tailed Hawk is a local staple. This one was seen flying alongside a highway. Who could resist snapping its picture?

Great Blue Herons are most often seen hunting in the dawn hours, but may be seen at any time. I take many pictures of herons; this view of one flying along the lakeshore was particularly satisfying.

The American Kestrel is, like the Merlin, a falcon but it is even smaller. This male has arrived to feed a headless bird to chicks in a tree cavity.

The osprey is, perhaps, my favourite local bird—I have known it since childhood. This one has brought a sucker to a piling and is about to enjoy breakfast.

I usually only see the Bald Eagle from a distance, but this insouciant bird seemed as interested in watching me as I was in watching it. Of the many pictures I took, my favourite was the view taken just as it was first touched by the light of the rising Sun. This is perhaps the second best bird picture I have taken.

The eagle portrait raises the question of what I think is my best ever bird picture. Here it is: two Trumpeter Swans at Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. They are seen in the morning: white birds against the stygian mountainside.

I had intended to post a dozen of my bird pictures—I ended up with a baker’s dozen. The grouse claimed amicus status and insisted upon being included.

The Common Loon changes its appearance between the summer, when it is in breeding plumage, and the winter, when it is not. A striking aspect of this is that not only does its plumage change with the season, but so do other features: eyes, bill, and feet.

Guide books comment upon most of these things, but not the feet. After all, who would ever identify a loon by its feet? Indeed, who ever even gets to see a loon’s feet? Well, sometimes the loon shows them. Here are two pictures, the first was taken last year, the second was taken only a few days ago.

In the summer the plumage of the Common Loon is a strongly patterned black and white; the eyes are reddish and the bill is black. The feet are also blackish.

In the winter, the plumage of the Common Loon is a muted grey; the eyes are brownish and the bill grey. The feet have become light grey and pink. It’s as if the red of the summer eyes has drained all the way down to the feet.

Mallards: female in foreground, male in breeding plumage in back

Male Mallard in eclipse plumage; his yellow bill reveals his sex

With a gazillion Mallards around the area, and each one of them moulting twice a year, one might expect to see them undergo this loss and regrowth of feathers with considerable frequency. Yet, I cannot recall having seen a Mallard in the process of moulting prior to Thursday.

When the female Mallard moults, she replaces her worn feathers with new ones having the same pattern. The transition is inconspicuous.

The male, however, switches between his breeding plumage and his eclipse plumage (during which time, he looks like a female). It is a big shift and during the transition, he should look distinctly anomalous.

So, why is this odd duck rarely seen?

Answer: He hides.

When a male Mallard moults, he loses all of his flight feathers simultaneously. His flightless state leaves him particularly vulnerable to predators. So just prior to moulting, he goes into seclusion, often hiding in a marsh. He is loath to reappear until in his breeding finery.

The odd-looking head and neck of Thursday’s male Mallard (foreground) reveals him to be only part way through the moult into breeding plumage. The colourful water results from the reflection of the fall foliage beyond them.

The speculum feathers of various ducks are curious. These are the patches of often iridescent colour on the inner wings of many species of ducks. The colour of speculum (Latin for mirror) feathers differs from one species to another, and the function seems a bit obscure.

Many of the other colourful feathers found on male ducks seem to have evolved in response to the sexual preferences of females. But, breeding preference is unlikely to have influenced speculum feathers, for they appear essentially the same on each sex.

Further, the speculum feathers are not particularly visible unless the duck is flying and then they are most easily seen from behind. It seems likely that the function is primarily that of a signal among flying members of a species so as to maintain the cohesion of a flock.

The blue-purple speculum of the Mallard is seen from behind when the bird is in flight.

The speculum seems to help ducks identify their own species when flying in a flock (birds of a feather…).