Wings Over the Rockies

Wings Over The Rockies Celebrates it 's 15th Year

Columbia Wetland Stewardship Partners are once again involved in ths years celebration of the incredible bio-diversity of life in the Wetlands of the upper Columbia Valley. Participants can chose from over 70 high quality educational events including a wide variety of field trips, river paddles, evening presentations and an art exhibit. Pynelogs Cultural Centre will once again be the hub of activities, and field trips will take participants to surrounding forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Some events will be coordinated with Parks Canada to help celebrate their 100th anniversary. Others will involve local ranchers including a BBQ at the historical K2 Ranch. The Festival will also showcase the flight cage for injured raptor rehabilitation, which the Invermere Veterinary Hospital is building in partnership with Wings Over the Rockies. 

Read Dave Quinn's excellent article about Columbia River Headwaters and the bird festival in the latest Westworld Magazine

Living Next To The Grocery Store

 Great Blue Heron Rookery -- Columbia Valley National Wildlife Area. Wilmer, BC

Photo by Larry Halverson

The larger nest on the right belongs to a Bald Eagle. Eagles are known to chase herons off their nests and prey on the hatchlings left behind.  So for this eagle it must be like living next to the grocery store.

Biologists say that in some cases eagles are pestering the herons so relentlessly that some of them even abandoned eggs and chicks and forsake their traditional breeding grounds.

For more information see biologist Marlene Machmer's report, which looks at the potential links between the failure rates at heron breeding colonies in the Columbia Valley and disturbance by Bald Eagles and humans. 

Cottonwood forests of the Columbia Wetlands provide key habitat for a number of wildlife species. In 2008 - 187 active heron nests were recorded in the East Kootenays

Beaver Scent Mounds

Beaver Scent Mound - Columbia River Feb. 14, 2011

Since beavers are primarily nocturnal they rely more on smell than visual communications. 

February is the beaver’s breeding season and the time of year that male beavers are busy building scent mounds. The mounds are made of mud and are topped off with a yellowish secretion from the castor gland near the beaver’s tail. They are usually built near the edge of water and close to beaver lodges and trails. These scent mounds serve in warning off transient beavers that the territory is already occupied and prevents confrontations.

Beaver Lodge

Beaver Trail

Bald Eagle Nest Building

Photo by Bram Rossman/ ExtremeXposures.ca

On February 18, 2011 Bram Rossman photographed this Bald Eagle packing a stick back to its nest at Windermere beach, BC

Bald Eagles tend to return to the same nest year after year but often make renovations each spring - adding new sticks and twigs to the old nest. This makes the eagles nest the largest of any North American bird. The record nest measured 20 feet deep, 10 feet wide and weighed two tons!

35 active Bald Eagle nests were documented in the East Kootenay during 2008 ground surveys. 

Clark's Nutcracker

On the morning of February 13th Phil Wallace of Spillimacheen watched flocks of 10 to 20 Clark’s Nutcrackers flying up from the wetlands. He said it lasted for about 30 minutes  and estimatedt  300 plus birds flew by his home and landed in some Douglas Fir trees about 500 feet above the river.

At irregular intervals, nutcrackers leave their usual breeding range to winter in lowlands. These erucptions are caused by poor conifer seed crops an important food for Clark’s Nutcrackers in winter. In spring most Clark’s Nutcrackers move upslope into the sub-alpine.

White-tailed Deer

White-tailed Deer named from the white underside of its bushy tail, 

which it flashes to warn of danger.

The Columbia River Wetlands with its patchwork landscape of dense thickets, open grass glades and water, provides excellent habitat for White-tailed Deer.  In winter whitetails eat mostly twigs of woody plants and cured herbs. So the cottonwood and willow groves along the valley bottom gives them rich feeding areas as well as good hiding places. With this kind of home there is no need to migrate, allowing White-tailed Deer to live out their entire lives within a 5 square km home range.

Riparian Habitat Enhancement

Wayne Stetski, EK Conservation Program & Andi Dzilums, 

Fairmont Hot Springs helping students with tree planting.
Photo by Bob Jamieson

Last spring the Columbia Wetland Stewardship Partners joined forces with Fairmont Hot Springs Resort to restore riparian habitat along a portion of the Columbia River headwaters. Nearly three hundred Cottonwood saplings were planted by 50 students from Windermere Elementary School.  

This project not only provided a meaningful outdoor learning experience for students but the plantings will enhance the wetlands habitat by stabilizing soil, offering homes to a variety of songbirds and woodpeckers as well as providing necessary shade for spawning fish.

Support received from the Upper Columbia Conservation Fund and the Royal Bank Blue Water Fund.

For a recent news story see the Columbia Valley Pioneer page 25.