Posts

Dusky shrew - a relatively common shrew I found in Kelowna, BC.

Image
Dusky shrew: The long, bicoloured tail helps with identification. Last year, while visiting Edmonton, I found a masked shrew ( blog here ).  Not to be outdone, I found a dusky shrew in Kelowna at a site I commonly visit, Munson Pond. All shrews are insectivores and have an insane metabolism, where they have to eat something like half their body weight each day to stay alive.  They have short lifespans, have several litters a year, and are active throughout the year.  In winter, they live in the subnivian zone, which is the area between the snowpack and the ground.  If insects are not available, they eat seeds, lichen, and fungi, and are known to have food stores (or larders) that they can access.  Dusky shrews are known to eat conifer seeds. The dusky shrew is relatively common.  It lives near water (I found this one 20 meters from the pond), and can be identified by the dark fur dorsally and the light fur ventrally.  The tail is also bicoloured, with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wood duck makes appearance at Munson Pond

Image
Male wood duck at Munson Pond, March 19, 2026. Although I know wood ducks inhabit many of the Lakes and slow streams of southern British Columbia, this is the first one I have seen at Munson Pond in the five years I have lived in Kelowna.  I have many photos of them in the Fraser Valley, where I lived for over 30 years, and have never seen them outside of our province.  They can be found throughout the Pacific Northwest, into southern Alberta, and in the east from the Great Lakes all the way down to Florida.   The male wood duck is known for its brightly coloured plumage, which sets it apart from most other ducks, with the possible exception of the Mandarin.  They look like females when juveniles and have an eclipse plumage when they are not breeding.  The three feather patterns are quite different from each other.  You can have a good look at them here .  (Be sure to scroll to the right to see the male's eclipse state). I photographed a wood duck...
Post a Comment
Read more

Redhead ducks at Munson Pond

Image
Redhead duck (rear) with three male and two female common goldeneye ducks. I have written blogs on redhead ducks before ( see my 2024 post ), which also have better photos than what I managed to get today at Munson Pond.  However, one of the purposes of today's blog is to indicate that they are present there, certainly at the moment.  Whether they will stay for breeding is another matter. I also saw a male wood duck and a female bufflehead, saw evidence of a mallard having been eaten by a bird of prey, and even got a photo of a shrew (albeit a dead one).  I also talked to two ladies who saw two turtles - the first ones of the year to emerge from their winter slumber.   If you visit the pond, you will also notice where they have put up boundary fences for where the construction will be.  Evidently, they are going ahead with the construction, and anything short of lying down in front of bulldozers will not likely dissuade them.   For what it's worth...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flickers declaring breeding territory - It's Hammer Time!

Image
Same bird, photographed from behind (left) and side (right).  Munson Pond, Kelowna. It's hard to go outdoors and not notice the hammering.  Sometimes, it's hard not to be inside and not notice it, especially when they find a piece of tin attached to your fireplace chimney.  I walked around Munson Pond today and heard about a half dozen of them proclaiming their claimed area to be the best around.   Northern Flickers are perhaps the most abundant woodpecker; they are found throughout the US year-round and much of Canada during breeding season.  And, at the beginning of breeding season, you can expect to hear their familiar trill call and their territorial hammering.   I managed to take a video today of the same one, letting all others know what was his.  You can see it below.  You may want to turn up the volume to hear the hammering. As you can probably tell, I did this handheld.  I used my D500 Nikon with my 500 mm and a 1.4x teleco...
Post a Comment
Read more

Morning Hike with Tom along Mission Creek in Kelowna

Image
It snowed last night.  This was the scene along Mission Creek this morning. It's only 4 km, sometimes around 6 if we are ambitious.  We meet three times a week, at 8:30 am, and walk along the well-worn path known as the Mission Creek Greenway.  There are over 16 km of trails so far, and that will be expanded to about 26 km in the near future.  The section we do is somewhere between 2-4 km, depending on whether it is the short or long version. The trees were thick with the snow from the preceding evening's weather event.  They were shedding their snowy crowns as we hiked; we both got pelted by tree-launched snowballs, one of them landing square on my neck, which then had the audacity to trickle along my spine.  It was warming up.  The temperature had risen to a balmy 1° C, and the absence of wind made the whole experience rather magical.  It was really rather special. I photographed my friend and Garibaldi Teacher acquaintance, Tom, on the path wit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Paulina Falls near Bend, Oregon

Image
Paulina Falls are located at Newberry National Volcanic Monument in Oregon. When it comes to landscapes, few things excite me more than waterfalls.  While exploring them from a safe distance, often with a safety fence and possible platform installed, which has my wife's approval, I love climbing around in the lower falls area, photographing the surging waters upstream.  And few places are as exciting to explore as the waterfalls found at Newberry National Volcanic Monument. It is often not possible to get to the lower falls areas without breaking local laws and safety guidelines, but fortunately, the falls here are relatively easy to explore.  Steep cliffs, friable and unstable rock surfaces, and hazardous slopes all spell potential doom for those who disregard posted warnings.  However, with caution and sure-footedness, one can move easily among the boulders.   I needed my ultra-wide-angle lens to capture the scene before me.  The above image does not...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tree Swallow parent and chick - nesting season is nigh.

Image
Tree swallow feeding a chick in a nest box in Maple Ridge, 2006. If you plan on putting up a bird house, the time to do it is now.  Well, for where I live, which is in the Okanagan in British Columbia.  It is the middle of March and I have noticed that a lot of birds have started nesting.  Not all of them, of course, as the swallows haven't come back yet, but many Passerine bird species have begun claiming territory.   Nest boxes should have a hole the size for the birds you want - or more specifically, too small for the birds you don't want.  Larger holes will be sure to get starlings, while slightly smaller holes will suit house sparrows fine.  To keep both of these species out, make your hole no bigger than 1-1/8 inches across.  This will allow chickadees, swallows, and house wrens access.  Even if you have larger holes and one of the desirable species takes up residency, they are at risk of being killed by larger birds such as the aforeme...
Post a Comment
Read more