I have commented a few times that ospreys of the West Arm are in retreat this summer: Ospreys’ annus horribilis, Happy herons. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they have all vanished, just that nesting has been remarkably poor. There are a few around.
Here is an osprey seen two days ago in the lakelet between Kokanee Creek Park and the Harrop ferry.
The European skipper is an invasive species. It was accidentally introduced into Ontario in 1910 and has since spread westward. That being said, one has to admit that invasive isn’t a bad word. This colourful butterfly does not seem to have displaced anything, but merely added to the richness of the fauna in the neighbourhood.
Here are two of the many European Skippers seen this afternoon in a field of tall grass and wildflowers.
I am so used to seeing Tree Swallows that I sometimes don’t even notice that some other swallows may have turned up.
I was watching the resident heron today (last picture), and swallows kept flitting by. Oh well, take a few pictures. But, they weren’t tree swallows. The first was a Northern Rough–winged Swallow, the second…, well, that was a problem. While it looked like a Violet-green Swallow, the throat and colours seemed wrong. The problem seems twofold: it is a juvenile and hasn’t yet attained full adult plumage. And Carol Pettigrew of Beaks (bird rescue) tells me that the sooty feathers are a result of malnutrition—it has had an inadequate supply of bugs.
A Northern Rough–winged Swallow.
A young malnourished Violet-green Swallow has sooty feathers.
And another picture of our resident Great Blue Heron.
Or more to the point: a Bobcat and a Long-tailed Vole.
If you want to see wildlife where it lives, you must spend time in the wild. So it is that, once again, the indefatigable Doug Thorburn managed superb wildlife images (three below), this time of a Bobcat hunting in the south Selkirks.
A Bobcat peers out of the brush.
It approaches.
And shows off its catch: a vole.
Pictures used with permission.
Previously, I showed pictures of a mother Common Merganser wandering by with one chick; later eight chicks came by. Today in the rain, another momma visited with nine chicks (two pictures below). At times they did the delightful merganser–chick thing of hitching a ride on mother’s back.
So, is it too much to hope for a dozen next time?
Derek Kite sent me these pictures of a young female Kestrel taking a Northern Alligator Lizard home for lunch.
These pictures are really very nice captures. First, the Kestrel is not all that common along the West Arm of Kootenay Lake and these were taken part way along the arm, near Duhamel. Second, to get a shot of a Kestrel carrying a lizard is superb. Third, in the first picture, the Kestrel is deploying its alulae as it negotiates the tree branches. Its all quite grand.
The female Kestrel flies back to the tree with its prey.
And then rests with it on a tree branch.
Pictures used with permission.
The hairy flower chafer is a beetle (Trichiotinus piger) that also goes by the name, the bee-mimic beetle. Indeed, it hangs out around flowers, is a plausible mimic of a bumble bee, and is a pollinator.
In other years, I have seen many bumble bees and only a few of these. This year it is the reverse: the hairy flower chafers seem to be doing the bulk of the pollinating in my yard (three pictures, below).
A hairy flower chafer is soon covered with pollen as it roams between flowers. These weeks I see them mainly on daisies.
I usually only see one of these on any flower.
But, it seems that these two have decided to become friends.
What could be unexpected about seeing a Deer Mouse? It is, after all, one of the most numerous mammals in North America. This nocturnal rodent is common to many forests of British Columbia. It normally avoids cities and remains hidden during the day.
The Deer Mouse is so named for the resemblance of its two-toned fur to the coat of a White–tailed Deer. The House Mouse is uniformly greyish brown.
However, the Deer Mouse pictured below was seen midday walking along a sidewalk in downtown Nelson. Unfortunately, this little beastie can transmit some rather nasty diseases.
I would prefer that this mouse and its kin hadn’t taken up residence in Nelson.
For some years I have taken pictures of the herons that stop by the docks and pilings within sight of my home. A pattern emerged: there were no heron pictures during the osprey season of late spring and summer. None! Now, it wasn’t that the herons had abandoned the region, but during that time, they avoided osprey territory, and Crescent Bay was clearly osprey territory with its nests and considerable activity. I wrote about the pattern of heron versus osprey observations last October with a posting entitled, Herons return.
All that changed this year: the year of the great West Arm blow down (see, Ospreys’ annus horribilis). With ospreys in retreat, suddenly I am seeing herons here during the summer. I have posted a few pictures as herons came by: Uptick response and Heron trumps chicks. And below is a picture from this morning. But, only this morning did I recognize the changed pattern: these pictures were taken in June and July, a time when herons had not previously visited.
It seems that a local disaster for ospreys has made for some rather happy herons.
It’s an ill wind that….
Promoter incompetence
I am enthusiastic about this region—something clearly shown by this website and blog. So, I am unenthusiastic about regional promoters who misrepresent us.
There seems to be streak of incompetence that runs through local tourism promoters. What else are you going to call it when they encourage people to visit all those nonexistent places: the many West Kootenays?
In a January posting, Plural ascending, I wrote about the roots of the plural form of our singular region. As far as I could tell at the time, the implication that there is more than one West Kootenay to be found on the map was largely confined to books written by sloppy authors.
Surely organizations that represent us to the world (sometimes with tax dollars) would hold themselves to a higher standard than do individual authors. Apparently not. Consider the first picture. Someone actually spent money to hang this in the terminal of the Castlegar airport (picture taken last March).
Quite a few tourism websites show equal incompetence. A website offered by West Kootenay Park Management welcomes people to the “Provincial Parks of the West Kootenays.” Kootenaysbc.com tells viewers about these phantom places three times and suggests that “About 100 years ago, prospectors came to the West Kootenays….” The International Selkirk Loop website offends so many times that it takes Google to list them all.
When it comes to touristic websites, my favourite abomination is Wikitravel which has a page devoted to all those many West Kootenays, but none for the one that actually exists: the West Kootenay. I attach a screen shot of the upper portion of that page. I particular enjoy the unidiomatic first sentence: plural subject, singular verb, missing preposition. (The same site has a page devoted to the East Kootenays).
Within all of this promotional nonsense, there does not appear to be any hint of purposeful deception—just incompetence.