Blue Mud Dauber
July 14th, 2011
I'm still enough of a novice at insect-watching that things can take me completely by surprise. Example: I had no idea we had metallic blue wasps in Ottawa! This one caught my eye at Mud Lake while I was watching the heron struggle with his lunch.
Many thanks to the folks at What's That Bug for their help. I was disappointed that it didn't turn out to be the badass-sounding Steel Blue Cricket Hunter--that is, until I learned that the Blue Mud Dauber is far more badass. Its favorite prey is Black Widow spiders! The adult actually lives on nectar, but captures and kills spiders to feed its young. As there aren't many (any?) Black Widows in Ottawa, I'm guessing this wasp is not particularly common either.
The second photo shows off the violet highlights in the wings:
Biting off more than he can chew
July 12th, 2011
This Great Blue Heron looked mighty proud of himself having caught a large catfish...until it occurred to him that he was going to have to swallow it. I watched him struggle with the thing for upward of fifteen minutes.
The final picture looks like success but wasn't--it managed to flop its way back out of his mouth! When I left he had the thing sitting on shore, apparently waiting for it to die so it would go down without a fight.
Bitter Nightshade
July 7th, 2011
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One of my favorite wildflowers. Look for these little purple and yellow beauties on vines intertwined with other plants. Later in the year, the flower clusters turn into berry clusters. The berries are poisonous to mammals, but birds eat them without harm.
Okanagan Vacation 15 - Departure
July 2nd, 2011
There was a beautiful sunrise on our way to the airport.
Photo by Michael Britton, wallpaper available
This concludes my photo tour of the Okanagan! The permanent gallery for all my best pictures from this trip is here. This does not include photos taken by my husband, which are stored here instead.
Triplist: 98 bird species including 40 lifers, plus 4 species heard only. Details below the cut.
( In here )
Okanagan Vacation 14 - Chute Lake
July 1st, 2011
Our final outing took us up to Chute Lake resort, where I was pleased to find a well-patronized set of bird feeders. One of the patrons was a Steller's Jay. The feeders themselves were hidden behind greenery, but I could catch him on camera as he perched on the lodge waiting his turn.
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The woods along Chute Lake Road had been severely burned by forest fire in 2003. This was to thank for one of my lifers of the trip--a bird which, believe it or not, considers burned woods to be ideal habitat! Olive-Sided Flycatchers like open areas with abundant dead trees. They use the dead trees as hunting perches, and the openness of the habitat means they can easily see the flying insects on which they prey.
There are a number of "fire follower" species, a few of whom would even go extinct if humans successfully suppressed all forest fires (and didn't do planned burns.) The Kirtland's Warbler requires stands of young Jack Pine for nesting. Jack Pine cones open and release their seeds only when the resin that seals them shut is melted by intense heat--say, heat from a forest fire. Without fire, the Kirtland's Warbler's habitat disappears. There are only a few thousand of them left in the world.
There's a story behind this robin. You could call her "the Varied Thrush that wasn't." Varied Thrush is a unique species of western Canada that looks somewhat like a robin with a dark band across the breast. So when Mike said he'd seen a robin with a breast band, I perked up instantly.
But when I saw the bird for myself, what I saw was indubitably a robin...she had the calls of a robin, the eye ring of a robin (as opposed to the Varied Thrush's orange eye stripe), and the tameness of a robin. She blithely disregarded us as she flew back and forth building her nest on a low pine branch. I was forced to conclude that the dark breast band which had gotten me so excited was either an aberration or (as occurs to me now) it was mud--she had simply dirtied herself up in the process of nest-building.
The Oregon Juncos foraging below the resort feeders were somewhat more amenable to the camera than the ones on Mount Kobau had been.
There was a hummingbird feeder at the resort as well, and it was thanks to that I got my 40th and final lifer of the trip: an eensy-weensy Rufous Hummingbird.
Okanagan Vacation 13 - Lake Vaseux
June 30th, 2011
I'd been told, by someone who had been out west, that Black-Billed Magpies were going to be "dirt birds"--i.e., common as dirt. They weren't, at least not in early June. I had an especially hard time finding one who was willing to sit still for the camera. On our trip to Lake Vaseux, though, I finally found the motherload: a farmyard with a whole flock of magpies in it!
It was interesting watching their response to pishing--a measured, intelligent response, rather than the Pavlovian-bell reaction of your typical songbird. No visible reaction at first, then magpies hopped into view on various prominent lookout posts. As I kept on pishing but no raptor or other danger appeared, they brushed it off and went back about their business.
We originally planned a trip to Lake Vaseux because our tour guide had suggested that we might find Bighorn Sheep there. We were not disappointed. We spotted a group of females and lambs up on a ledge. They were quite a distance away, but still seemed to find our attention disconcerting. They watched us pointedly, then moved away higher up the ledge and out of view.
Okanagan Vacation 12 - Behind Brin de Soleil
June 29th, 2011
On my second walk behind Brin de Soleil, I noticed these beautiful red and yellow wildflowers in bloom. "Blanketflowers", I think they're called--gaillardia aristata. Showy cultivars of this species are popular in gardens.
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I also discovered a Pygmy Nuthatch at the nest. She was flying back and forth, carrying insects in her bill and poking her head into a hole that looked no bigger around than a quarter--hard to believe there was a nest of baby birds in there!
She wouldn't actually go to the nest with me close by, though. She just perched on the tree, chirping indignantly. I snapped a few pictures and left her alone.
Okanagan Vacation 11 - Max Lake
June 28th, 2011
A couple photos from our trip to Max Lake:
Western Tanager
Ornate Tiger Moth
Okanagan Vacation 10 - Apex Mountain (beasties)
June 27th, 2011
Another point of interest up Apex Mountain was the colony of Yellow-Bellied Marmots. We ran into them in a few places. Like woodchucks, but svelter and cuter. We confused them with these guys at first, until we noted the marmots' larger size and facial markings.
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Okanagan Vacation 9 - Apex Mountain (birds)
June 26th, 2011
Our next trip was up another snow-capped mountain. We had heard there was a chairlift up there that operated even in summer. We figured it would at least be a fun ride and might be a way to see some truly alpine birds. Alas, our information was apparently out of date.
The ski village, though, was a gold mine of Clark's Nutcrackers, a species I'd been seeking since my arrival. Clark's Nutcracker is one of the west's truly unique birds, with no close cousin in the east (though it does have one in Eurasia.) It's a corvid (crow relative) of the Rocky Mountains specialized for eating pine seeds. Like a squirrel, it caches large amounts of food in fall and uses these caches to survive the harsh winters. Clark's Nutcrackers form long-lasting pair bonds and males contribute equally to childrearing, even brooding eggs in the nest.
The village was teeming with them. They were backyard birds there, clearly comfortable around humans and human habitation.
"Corvids" was the theme of the trip, in fact. We saw lots of Gray Jays. Gray Jays occur coast to coast in Canada's mountainous and boreal regions. (The nearest place to find them in our area is Algonquin Park.) They're big fluffy gray and white birds, quite tame, even known to feed from the hand--sort of like overgrown chickadees!
A Steller's Jay made a brief appearance amidst one flock of Gray Jays.
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