In late summer, a Loon moults out of its breeding plumage. It grows plain brownish gray feathers on its back, top of neck, and head over a white belly and throat. The Loon will not return to its breeding plumage until late winter.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local Loons.
The local checklists for birds assure me that kingfishers can be seen at any time of the year. And indeed, I have seen them year round. Yet, for a few years now, the only time I seem to get satisfactory pictures of them is in the late summer or early fall. Maybe it is happenstance, or maybe the arrival of the fledglings means that the numbers go up.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local kingfishers.
Usually, when a kingfisher is seen, it is perched on high (often a piling) and staring at the lake surface. It is watching for fish. This bird lacks the second rusty band; it is a male.
Another kingfisher staring ardently into the water.
This little fellow is almost certainly a juvenile.
The broad rusty band reveals this kingfisher to be a female.
Some years ago, while looking at a picture I took of a tiger lilly, I discovered that the flower sheltered a crab spider (Misumena vatia). Known variously as a flower spider, and a goldenrod spider, this tiny predator haunts flowers and pounces on the pollinators that visit. Now I watch for these tiny creatures, and find them mainly on daisies. The crab spider does not move around much. Once spotted on a flower, it usually can be seen at the same place on the same flower for days thereafter.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local spiders.
As with my first discovery of a crab spider in a picture of a tiger lilly, I did not see the spider when I took this picture of a pieris japonica, so well did it blend in: “pay no attention to me; I am just one of the blossoms.”
The spider awaits a victim with open arms. This is a female.
After the crab spider’s victim has been paralyzed with a venom, it can be consumed at the spider’s leisure.
The venom liquifies the internal contents of the victim which the spider then drinks.
The male crab spider is much smaller than the female and so not easy to find early in the season. The pollen spread across the petals near the spider is evidence of earlier struggles.
Bee flies (Family: bombyliidae) gain their name from their behaviour (they feed on nectar and pollen) and often their appearance (they often resemble bees). Below are examples of three genera seen during the summer of 2010.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local flies.
The bombylius fly (Bombyliidae sp.) is usually seen in the spring only to vanish later in the summer. It uses its long proboscis to extract nectar from flowers.
The villa fly (Villa sp.) is often seen probing flowers.
These anthrax flies (Anthrax sp.) are mating. This genus of bee flies gains the name, anthrax, from its colour (anthrax coming from the Greek word for coal). They were on some wooden siding. When a picture was taken they would fly away still attached to one another, but quickly alight again. 
As a small child playing on a summer beach on the West Arm, it was a source of frustration for me that as the Sun moved into the west, it was often blocked by clouds that had grown on the ridges above me. Why did I often get shade just when I wanted to swim? The fact that I later understood the meteorology did not diminish the childhood disappointment.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local cumulus clouds.
This is a view from beside the airport at Nelson of cumulus clouds growing over Mt. Nelson (Elephant Mountain) and the ridge above the North Shore.
Around the Lake, mountain waves are common. Analogous to the waves in a creek downstream from a submerged rock, the mountain waves are undulations in the airflow as a result of the wind blowing over a mountain. Usually, the visual evidence of mountain waves is the appearance of wave clouds (with their characteristic, smooth, lenticular shape). But, now and then smoke from a forest fire reveals the waves.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local wave clouds.
Smoke from a distant forest fire flows over the mountains around the Lake and is carried up and down by the mountain waves.
Observations during a walk along the shore on August 7, 2010.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local moths, solitary wasps, flies, and social bees.
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This tiny, easily overlooked, creature is the sulphur knapweed moth. It is an Eurasian import used for biological pest control of knapweed. The adult lives for only a few days, during which time the female lays eggs on stems and leaves. The larva, a root miner, moves to the root of the plant and tunnels through the cortex as it feeds. Not surprisingly, it was seen in the vicinity of spotted knapweed.
Nearby the sulphur knapweed moth there was a vigorous growth of spotted knapweed. Extracting nectar from the knapweed was a sand wasp.
Also feeding on the spotted knapweed was a thick–headed fly. This fly is a predator on the sand wasp. It waits at a flower, grabs the wasp and plants an egg on it. The larva then consumes the wasp from inside.
A conservationist’s dilemma: The most striking visitors to the spotted knapweed, however, were a few western bumble bees, a nearly extirpated species. In the last half–dozen years, this once common pollinator of western NA has vanished from the US, and now is almost gone from southern BC. On this occasion, a few had established an interrelationship with the vilified knapweed. The dilemma: does one eradicate the dreaded knapweed and further stress a major pollinator, or leave it to spread? For those who know the stories of the two species involved, this is a troublesome picture.
The literature about the Spirit Bear and the Kermode bear is filled with nonsense. First, the Kermode is NOT a Spirit Bear; second, while the Kermode may or may not be a sub species, the Spirit Bear is NOT a sub species of the Black Bear. Sigh…, the hyperbole and touristy schlock seems endless.
The name, Black Bear, is somewhat unfortunate for not all Black Bears are black. As with human hair colour, these bears come on a variety of colours (called colour phases): black, chocolate, cinnamon, white and everything in between. They do not represent different sub species; indeed, a single litter may contain cubs of different colours. Mind you, white (or cream) bears are the exception everywhere. They are most common on the North Coast of BC among a group of Black Bears styled the Kermode, but even there, they are rare (fewer than 10%). Around here, they are rarer still, but they are seen.
The Spirit Bear is defined (by the Government) as a white colour phase Black Bear—wherever it is seen in the Province. And they are seen throughout the Province. Further, not only is the Spirit Bear a provincial symbol, but it is protected (from hunting).
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local black bear.
Below is a picture of a local Spirit Bear cub, taken by Doug Thorburn in July, 2010,
There are a number of local wild orchids. None are particularly easy to find, but some are downright elusive. Such is the case with the Giant Helleborine. I looked for it off and on for four years before finding it this year.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local orchids.
The Giant Helleborine (a local wild orchid).
Usually when one sees white-tailed deer galloping, they are running away on land. So, this early July view of a white-tailed couple charging forward through the shallows is unusual.
The Kootenay-Lake Website offers a discussion and more pictures of the local white-tailed deer.
