{"id":10505,"date":"2014-05-07T16:28:01","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T23:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10505"},"modified":"2014-05-12T14:17:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T21:17:49","slug":"kokanee-harlequins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10505","title":{"rendered":"Kokanee Harlequins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Before this morning, I had not\u00a0seen Harlequin Ducks on Kokanee Creek. The only local venue had been\u00a0the Salmo River, where one could see them from the road joining the West and South Arms of Kootenay Lake.<\/p>\n<p>I would have missed them on Kokanee Creek this morning if it hadn&#8217;t been for Joanne Siderius who alerted me and posted the first pictures to her <a href=\"http:\/\/sideriusblog.com\/2014\/05\/07\/beauty-in-the-turbulence-harlequins\/\" target=\"_blank\">blog<\/a>. The last observation I know of these ducks in the Park was seventeen years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Duck royalty has arrived in Kokanee Park in the form of a pair of Harlequin Ducks&#8212;aptly named,\u00a0<i>Histrionicus h<\/i><i>istrionicus&#8212;<\/i>apparently a name chosen to reflect their courtship display<i>.<br \/><\/i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10509\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/harlequin140507bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><i><br \/><\/i><\/p>\n<p>As is usual with water fowl, the male&#8217;s plumage is spectacular,<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10507\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/harlequin140507ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>while the female&#8217;s plumage is muted.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10506\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/harlequin140507es.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is likely a mating pair, but since\u00a0this bird nests on the ground, and the trail alongside\u00a0the creek is well travelled by dogs, I fear for the safety of what may be the first-ever Harlequin chicks in the Park.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10510\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/harlequin140507as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, it is clear that the local\u00a0dippers have a new competitor for the creek&#8217;s resources.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10508\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/harlequin140507cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Before this morning, I had not\u00a0seen Harlequin Ducks on Kokanee Creek. The only local venue had been\u00a0the Salmo River, where one could see them from the road joining the West and South Arms of Kootenay Lake. I would have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=10505\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10505"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10606,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions\/10606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}