{"id":9134,"date":"2013-11-27T11:30:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9134"},"modified":"2013-11-27T21:28:24","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T05:28:24","slug":"ferry-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9134","title":{"rendered":"Ferry birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Many birds take advantage of human structures and activities. This is one I hadn&#8217;t noticed before: diving waterfowl that seem to appreciate a cable ferry.<\/p>\n<p>A cable ferry is an interesting watercraft: Travelling back and forth along the same track, it regularly disturbs both the water and sandy bottom as it approaches a landing. From the point of view of some diving waterfowl, it is probably the disturbed prey that are of interest. At least this seems to be the reason that I see such birds playing chicken with the Harrop cable ferry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The birds hunt in the shallow water near the landings, often directly in the path of the ferry. The activity probably isn&#8217;t as risky for them as it would be for a dabbling bird such as a mallard. These birds merely dive just before impact. This tactic seems to work because a cable ferry has no prop to chew them up.<\/p>\n<p>A mirage of the Harrop cable ferry sets the stage. The ferry&#8217;s image is sailing along through the air, well above the water, and while not very functional, certainly poses scant threat to swimming birds.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-9135\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/mirage131124s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Horned Grebe was hunting along the shore in the path of the ferry. Just as the ferry closed in, the grebe dove.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-9138\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/hornedgrebe131124s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Bufflehead Duck was also hunting in the shallow water disturbed by the ferry. Here is its last minute escape.<br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-9141\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/bufflehead131124s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Many birds take advantage of human structures and activities. This is one I hadn&#8217;t noticed before: diving waterfowl that seem to appreciate a cable ferry. A cable ferry is an interesting watercraft: Travelling back and forth along the same &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=9134\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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-9134","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\/9134","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=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9153,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions\/9153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}