{"id":31005,"date":"2021-08-25T06:56:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T13:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=31005"},"modified":"2021-08-25T06:57:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T13:57:44","slug":"away-views-heron-crane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=31005","title":{"rendered":"Away views: heron &#038; crane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was at the Coast for three weeks so watched wildlife. Birds were seen mostly. The species I will show in the next few postings can all be seen at Kootenay Lake &#8212; herons are common here year round, cranes are at the south end of the Main Lake in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the Great Blue Heron is a staple of Kootenay Lake. However, its fishing success in this coastal pond seemed far greater than what I had noticed here.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31007\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/heron210808as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At the same pond was a family of Sandhill Cranes. It was the first time I had seen a chick. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31013\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane210808es.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sandhill Cranes are opportunistic feeders, but most often they eat plants and grains. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31011\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane210808cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But they also scrounge for small animals. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31008\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane210808as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Adults have a red patch on their heads that the chicks lack.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31012\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane210808ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Plumage is a variable grey and is often streaked with brown from the iron-rich mud used when preening. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31010\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane210808bs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A heron and cranes were in the same pond; Occasionally size comparisons were possible.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31015\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane_heron210808gs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the comparisons even extended to mallards. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31006\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/crane_size210808s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I was at the Coast for three weeks so watched wildlife. Birds were seen mostly. The species I will show in the next few postings can all be seen at Kootenay Lake &#8212; herons are common here year round, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=31005\">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-31005","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\/31005","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=31005"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31037,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31005\/revisions\/31037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}