This is a largish collection of images from May, none of which has had a posting of its own.
The House Finch is a colourful western bird that has now spread across the continent.
The Killdeer arrives from the south in March, but I saw my first one this year in May.
Related to the robin, the Townsend’s Solitaire is with us year round, although it spends most of the warm season in the high country.
After the provincial parks were closed for five weeks, some of the wildlife got used to being without those intrusive humans. Generally well hidden, a Columbian ground squirrel was occupying a park trail when humans returned.
The Northern Rough-winged Swallow arrives in April to breed but is gone again in August.
The Violet-green Swallow usually has a longer season here: from March to September.
The Eastern Kingbird is a large flycatcher that catches insects on the wing.
A female Western Tanager visits.
A male white-tailed deer is both starting on its antlers and moulting into its summer coat.
That a group of Pipits stopped by for a visit was unexpected as they generally nest at higher elevations. Yet, it seems that during migration they can be seen elsewhere.
Mommy merganser swims by with her fifteen charges. They are not necessarily all of her own offspring for merganser chicks have a habit of just joining any passing parade.
The Spotted Sandpiper, our most common summer shorebird, scarfs an arthropod.
A dipper parent feeds a grub to its chick in the nest.
Two courtship displays
I watched two courtship displays of birds this morning. One was obvious; the other was subtle. A courtship display is a behaviour in which an animal (often a male) attempts to attract a mate.
The courtship display of the Wild Turkey is anything but recondite. The male spreads its tail, fluffs up its feathers, its head turns blue, its caruncles turn red, its beard hangs down and its snood elongates. Does it work? Well, the number of Wild Turkeys does seem to be increasing. Consider the role of the snood: a red fleshy protuberance that drapes overtop the bill and hangs down well beyond it. It turns out that females prefer to mate with long-snooded males, and this provides a sexual selection that increases the snood’s length. Of course, in an example of the excesses of the marketplace, the displaying male turkey is used in grocery-store marketing in the fall. Alas, it is the spring when the male displays, not at Thanksgiving.
A year ago, I saw a Wilson’s Snipe perched atop the exact same five-metre-tall snag as today. This struck me as rather odd as this snipe is usually secretive. It is well-camouflaged, shy, and it conceals itself within ground vegetation only to flush when approached. Yet, this is the second time I had seen one chirping its presence out in the open. It turns out that this is a courting behaviour. It sings a loud kit, kit, kit from a rather visible perch to attract a mate.
