Exploring Kootenay Lake

Watch your surroundings long enough, and something distinctly odd may turn up — in this case a tufted sparrow. 

The bird is obviously a chick. It did not seem capable of flight and merely sat on the edge of a road. Two questions: What kind of bird is it? Why does it have antler-like feathery tufts extending from its head?

There have been really occasional sightings of tufted House Finch chicks, and a juvenile Chipping Sparrow, something my chick might be. However, I can find strikingly little information on such birds.

This tufted sparrow has confused me.

We have grosbeaks: similarly looking, heavy-billed, seed- and insect-eating birds that have been lumped together as a group for over three centuries. They are, what is referred to as a form taxon, a group based, not upon their biology, but merely their appearances and behaviours.

In the past week, I have watched two grosbeaks: the Black-headed Grosbeak, which is a cardinal grosbeak, and the Evening Grosbeak, which is a grosbeak finch. These two are only distantly related. When seen in the pictures, they are clearly different, but when spotted in the field, I thought they were the same.

The Black-headed Grosbeak is a seasonal bird that is here in small numbers in the warm months. Its heavy bill is obvious.

Also relatively uncommon, the Evening Grosbeak might be seen at any time of the year.

Here the Evening Grosbeak poses for a contemplative portrait.

New life abounds in the spring. Here are three rarely featured species.

Robin
Four robin chicks look out from a nest under a building’s eves. 

One of the chicks seems to be getting more than its fair share of food.

Wild Turkey
A Wild Turkey mommy shelters her six chicks.

The chicks appear and disappear in the grass.

Black-capped Chickadee
The chicks of the Black-capped Chickadee look just like the adults. However, after fledging, the chicks are still being fed by adults. The chick on the right is begging for food.

And the adult responds by feeding it.

When one watches a Turkey Vulture’s morning, it certainly seems to reveal a ritualistic behaviour.

The day begins with the vulture spreading its wings to warm then in the early morning sunlight.

Then comes the obligatory stretching of the wings.

And the pooping.

There follows more stretching, while scanning the ground below for a possible breakfast.

It is time to head off and look for tasty carrion.

OK, this is going to take a bit more effort.

There is a narrow window of opportunity to be able to see dipper chicks leaning out of their nest and being fed. When slightly younger, they stay inside; when slightly older they have fledged and are gone.

When I looked through my pictures of this event, something struck me as incongruous. The pictures of all the chicks showed them as apparently larger than the adults doing the feeding. How can this be?

I immediately thought about just-fledged juvenile eagles. They look bigger than the adults attending them only because the juvenile feathers are unworn and fluffed up. Then it dawned on me that in addition to the fluffy chick feathers, the dipper adult’s feathers were matted down from it having just swum underwater in the creek to retrieve the meal. So, the disparity in size makes sense, but it does look a bit odd.

Four dipper chicks lean out of their nest to beg for food.

Gregarious, garrulous, and guileless, a couple of dozen Cedar Waxwings feast on the petals of a black hawthorn tree. This is the first time I have seen a flock of these birds feeding on the petals of flowers. 

The Cedar Waxwing visits to breed here in the warm season. But, it also wanders about to feed.

One of the many Cedar Waxwings sits amidst its target blossoms of the black hawthorn tree.

As a bird depletes the petals at one spot, it quickly flies to another.

It seems that the thing being eaten is actually the petals of the blossoms.

And soon a bird is off to sample another blossom.