After admiring the sparrows at Seton Lake, I went to the Spawning Channel’s Lower channel. This place has some great walking trails, and is frequented by a great variety of birds and other wild life. Due to the winding waterway I have found many ducks like to frequent here, and on this day I was lucky to find a Harlequin duck mom and her four chicks. She was quite freaked out by my presence and just high tailed it out of there. I tried following her discretely for a while but she was getting pretty stressed so I let her be.
My last trip to Lillooet, last weekend I saw (what I think) is the same family of Harlequins, this time at the Upper Channel. The chicks were quite a bit bigger and seemed to have no problem playing in the rapids and climbing over the rocks and branches. This picture below is from last weekend where you can see mom admiring her little chick who’s stretching up tall.
I didn’t run across any males this year yet, but have in the past. This picture below is of the gorgeous male Harlequin duck, taken last spring. I find it astounding sometimes the different patterns and colours that occur in nature. Simply amazing.
BCSONGBIRD 