Exploring Kootenay Lake

This is a good year for black bears in the valleys. Some years I see very few to none. This year, I have seen many. In particular, there is one bear in my neighbourhood that is easily recognized as an individual for it wears a blaze. 

A blaze is a common feature in eastern North American (or so I am told), but here it is rare enough to bestow individuality. Although not the only bear seen, this blaze-wearing bear has been a sometime resident for two months. 

As it searches for food around homes, it has evolved from favouring clover (a month ago) to feeding in cherry trees (now). 

The black bear was about five metres up a cherry tree. It wore the blaze on its chest. This is distinctly unusual in this region.

I watched the bear for a while, but towards the end it became uncomfortable with my presence and made a quiet huffing. (Huffing is a sound made by an apprehensive black bear. Huffing does not lead to an attack.) So, I drifted away and left it to eat cherries.

This posting was prompted by the scruffy-looking female mule deer that was feeding on clover in the picture on the right.

There was something odd about it. Her body is adorned with whitish splotches. Yet, it seemed too early in the year and she seemed too big for this to be the result of the spots displayed by fawns.

Better look at a side view.

This is a moult pattern. The orange is the summer pelage; the white is what is temporarily left over from the winter. But, that pelage is dark, not white. What is going on?

I have seen the same pattern on a male white-tailed deer and even posted about it. As the same thing seems to be going on with the white-tailed and the mule deer, I will use white-tailed deer to explain what I know.

In the summer, deer wears a orangish pelage for camouflage. Now, humans clearly see an orange deer against a green background. But, that is not the case for all animals. Deer have two colour receptors (at the long wavelength end) and don’t see the difference between orange and green; they both look a neutral grey. So, the deer thinks it blends in with its background. But more to the point, the principal predators, coyotes and wolves, have the same deficiency and see orange and green as shades of grey. This is actually a good summer camouflage for deer.

However, moulting is a fact of life for deer that must renew its fur and the winter brings a duller brownish shade which blends in with the colourless surroundings. It also provides more insulation, for in winter there is an undercoat of (what are called) guard hairs.

There is a remaining problem. The spring moulting shows the orangish pelage, but with flaky whitish patches. I think these patches are the underneath guard hairs of winter, which vanish in the summertime. Is that the colour of the guard hairs? I cannot determine this, but this one picture of a winter deer with claw marks from a cougar suggests that the underfur is that colour.

So, both deer species go through a spring moult at this time whereby the pelage looks orange with white streaks.

I was close.

Photographer: In exemption of the first, by Cynthia Fraser, the photos here are taken by Finn Fraser Grathwol. More of Finn’s photos can be seen at @finnfrasergrathwolphoto on instagram.

In the late evening (read: very low shutter speeds and blurrier photos) on the way back from Arrow Lakes on Canada day, we (myself, my dad, and Cynthia) came across a herd of 15-20 Rocky Mountain Elk, the local subspecies, by the side of the highway. Judging by the antlers, the herd appears to be almost exclusively comprised of females and 1-2 year old young males, referred to as cows to bulls, respectively.

Below, courtesy of Cynthia Fraser, a larger-scale sample of this herd is pictured, including a few month old calf. 

Here, a mother and her son pose for a family portrait. 

Two males; note the difference in antler length – perhaps signifying a slight age difference.

A different male rests — or rather uses his mother for a chin rub — it is unclear what behaviour is being exhibited. 

A young male elk times his obligatory nose cleaning perfectly with my camera’s shutter.