We are having a transition to spring. Two days ago, a posting (still here) showed two birds that spring will send on their way. But yesterday, a friend spotted a Bald Eagle nesting on the north side of the West Arm, and I saw this one on the south side.
Bald Eagles start their seasonal nesting in March.
Are we experiencing winter or signs of spring? Some wildlife still consider it to be winter.
Pygmy Owls are altitudinal migrants: cold months are spent at the valley bottoms; warm months, high in the mountains. This one is still in the valley. It is picking out its lunch as it watches a smorgasbord of delicious little birds flitting about below.
Trumpeter Swans are latitudinal migrants. Here are four of twenty Trumpeter Swans seen in the last two days. Apparently, there isn’t enough open water to our north for them to head there yet.
Redheads are not common around the Lake, but there is something about a cold winter that draws them to the Nelson waterfront. About four dozen have been hanging around there for a while.
The duck is named for the striking red head of the male; the female (left) has better camouflage.
They are often seen with bills tucked into their feathers. It is, after all, cold.
Buddies.
“Oh, it is good to be me.”
In an adjacent bay, seemingly segregated by colour, are some Greater Scaups with greenish heads.
This winter started with visiting irruptive birds: Irruptive meets invasive (2017/11/20); Irruptive winter? (2017/12/4). The earliest arrivals were Common Redpolls and Pine Grosbeaks. Many irruptives are still here.
An irruptive is an arctic species that may or may not search for food locally in any particular year. Sometimes they appear; sometimes they do not.
Now, three months after these early winter observations, the area still boasts irruptive species.
Sometimes the Pine Grosbeak arrives in great numbers, but this year brought only a few. This female is feeding on waxberries.
Not seen early in the winter, Bohemian Waxwings have now arrived in numbers.
The Bohemian Waxwing is a beautiful bird with a crest and a yellow tipped tail.
This Bald Eagle was hunting a duck. This was not a good day to be that duck.
In the last two days, many swans have been reported along the West Arm of Kootenay Lake, and along the lower Kootenay River. Judging by the ones I have seen, they are Trumpeters.
They stopped by to feed on their way to the Arctic where they will breed this coming spring.
There were eleven swans in this group.
They fed.
They preened on the border ice and then stood around lollygagging.
Having preened, some of the swans settled their feathers by flapping their wings.
A glance along the list of recent postings (to the right) might lead one to suspect that this blog is classist: biased towards Class Aves; discriminating against Class Mammalia. The list shows many postings about birds, but only a few about mammals.
Actually, the blog merely records what is seen during wanderings: Nature’s offerings are biased.
Around the Lake, there are many seasonally changing species of birds. They are often highly visible against the sky or the open waters of the Lake. Many are both spritely and tolerant of human observers. The number of easily observable mammals seems fewer, and those that are not hibernating are usually skulking through the brush. Postings reflect this visual accessibility.
Nevertheless, this last week encountered two mammals. Strikingly, each was out in the open.
A coyote scours a vast field for tasty voles hiding beneath the snow. The coyote was distinctly suspicious of the distant human who pointed a device in its direction. Coyotes cannot quite grasp that humans also use the verb, shoot, for a camera.
The second mammal is a muskrat. It wasn’t particularly concerned with the presence of a human, but then muskrats don’t have very good vision. Here it is seen sitting on a branch in the water enjoying some aquatic weed.
There is no good justification for including this image, other than the apparent joie de vivre exhibited by the muskrat sitting on the edge of border ice.
Most birds are limited in what they can eat for they have to swallow whole whatever is caught. This was illustrated three months ago in the posting, birds eat. However, the beaks of a few birds have a prominent hook which enables them to tear large prey into pieces to swallow a bit at a time. Many, but not all, of these birds are raptors — a striking example of which was last Saturday’s fortuitous observation of a Golden Eagle. Other delights are the Bald Eagle, and our favourite summer resident, the Osprey. Photographed last week were two other raptors, plus a songbird, all with hooked bills.
A Red-tailed Hawk is a permanent resident. This one was watching for voles.
The Rough-legged Hawk is only seen during the winter; in the summer it breeds in the high Arctic.
The Northern Shrike is a songbird, yet, like a raptor, it uses its hooked bill to tear apart prey. The shrike is smaller than a robin and so is tiny by comparison to the hawks, above.
I don’t see a Golden Eagle often. Indeed the last time I saw one was a half-dozen years ago and it was flying at a high altitude somewhat south of the Lake. Today’s golden flew low along the north slope of the West Arm — a region with sparse observations of this upland species.
Mind you, Golden Eagles are reported more often than they have ever been seen. Usually the (erroneous) report is actually of a juvenile Bald Eagle, but I have seen breathless claims where the actual bird seen was a Red-tailed Hawk. Further, the Golden Eagle isn’t the gargantuan bird of popular myth. It actually averages slightly smaller than the Bald Eagle.
Yet, seeing this upland bird is indeed a rare treat — especially a close observation, such as occurred on this occasion.
A Golden Eagle flies low along the ridge north of the West Arm. One of the many features that distinguish this eagle as a golden is the colour of its nape.
Den failure
I normally don’t post failures to my blog — there are just too many of them. And who wants to see a blurry picture where a coyote, say, has just left the frame?
However, this posting is about a failure. I am just not sure what is the source of the failure.
For some time, I have been monitoring the likely den of a black bear. In the absence of waders, it is inaccessible and for the most part hidden behind overhanging brush. The black cavity in a bank is only partially visible from one small spot. Repeatedly I have tried to get a picture deep into the stygian interior, but have been bedevilled by uncertain focus and poor lighting. Success came after many attempts.
The den is empty — or, at least, it appears to be so. There might be bears in a tunnel around a corner where I cannot see them. On the other hand, Alaskan hunters who look for bears in their dens claim that only a small percentage of the dens are ever occupied, so this one might well be vacant.
Did local bears choose a different den this winter, or did I fail to see occupants around a tortuous bend in the cavity? I don’t know?
Icicles and roots hang from the roof in this view deep into what is likely the den of a black bear.
