Exploring Kootenay Lake

It is a delight to watch Trumpeter Swans. They are beautiful, big, and have recently returned from near extinction.

A walk in the Park: two people, three swans.

Size
The Trumpeter Swan is the largest species of native waterfowl in North America. It is considerably bigger than its cousin, the Tundra Swan, and it dwarfs the Canada Goose.

Numbers
By the 1930s, hunting had reduced the Trumpeter Swan to a few dozen breeding pairs in all of North America. While it has made a spectacular comeback, it is still not all that common. The bird is now largely confined to the West where it might visit Kootenay Lake on its spring and fall migrations.

Beauty
I leave that to the pictures.

A small family of Trumpeter Swans visited Kokanee Creek Provincial Park on Saturday. Two adults and a juvenile swam along the shore and fed in the shallows east of the creek mouth. Although I saw Tundra Swans last April, these were the first Trumpeters I had seen this year.

A family swims through the shallows: male (largest, left), female (middle) and juvenile (right, greyish plumage).

A quick shake helps to dry the head after probing underwater for food.

Suitable for the Trumpeter family photo album: mommy and me.

The proud parents—Trumpeters usually mate for life.

A Trumpeter Swan towers over two Mallards feeding alongside.

Wigeons begin to pair bond in the winter and some along Nelson’s waterfront are already travelling in pairs and exchanging endearments.

Endearments? What form might those take among ducks? A common one seems to be wing-flapping. This is a form of ritualized display between waterfowl. It is unrelated to preening or the drying of feathers. It is typically used within couples. These three pictures show the female, the male, and then the female displaying.

The female wigeon is swimming.

The male wigeon is swimming.

The female wigeon rears up in the water, flaps her wings and displays the normally hidden white feathers underneath. It is as if she were saying: “Hi honey.”

A dozen or more Western Grebes have been hanging around in the waters off the Nelson airport. This group has sometimes been accompanied by other species, but the dominant presence is that of the Western. Here are three pictures of this long-necked bird.

I don’t understand why the Nelson waterfront consistently has a much richer range of waterfowl than can be seen elsewhere along the lakeshore. In the last few days, in addition to the usual mallards and geese, there have been: three species of grebes, wigeons, gadwalls, buffleheads, ring-necked ducks, scaups, and of course, coots. A few from Wednesday are illustrated.

Of the waterfowl shown, all but the grebe feast on aquatic plants. Maybe it is the underwater flora that attracts them to Duck Bay.

A female (front) and male (back) American Wigeon were often seen eating plants.

The Ring-necked Duck is named for a faint ring visible only when its neck is extended. This is the male,

and this is the female Ring-necked Duck. The ring on her neck is seen here.

From a distance, the plumage of Gadwalls looks uniformly greyish brown, but it is actually finely patterned. This is the male,

and this, the female gadwall mallard. See comment, below.

The Pied-billed Grebe did not mix with the other waterfowl—it is not a plant eater—and there was only one of them. At this time of the year, it does not display the patterned bill, for which it is named.

Then, there was a great crowd of American Coots, some of which stood in the shallows,

while others showed their lobed toes as they took flight.

I saw my first American Dipper in Kokanee Creek some years ago. Since then I have seen them there, along the lakeshore, and in alpine lakes. However, these pictures were again taken at Kokanee Creek.

The dipper is an unusual bird: it is a song bird that hunts for invertebrates under the waters of fast flowing cold streams and along the adjacent lakeshore. It peers under the water and even dives and walks along the bottom.

The wing feathers that are edged in white show this to be a juvenile. Also, note the dipper’s feet; they are not webbed, but adapted for walking on the bottom.

The dipper stands in a shallow portion of the stream. Its body casts a shadow on the water which enables one to easily see to the stream bottom and the feet.

The dipper peers into the stream for things to eat. In slightly deeper water, it will dive and forage along the bottom.

The Pine Siskin feeds in trees, feeds on the ground, and travels in flocks. Each of these behaviours is seen in yesterday’s pictures of the bird. The ones with the yellowish markings are male; the ones with the paler, or whitish markings, are female.