Kendall McLaughlin
Vancouver, CA
Member since January 22, 2021
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Hammering Away
After weeks of rain, we were awaken by a gorgeous sunny day so I had to take advantage by taking a walk. I came across two Pileated Woodpeckers hammering away at an old snag - one female and one male. Which is which? The male has the scarlet red "mustache" and the female has the black "mustache". They excavate cavities in dead trees to live in. This is important because when these cavities are abandoned, other creatures will inhabit these spaces including other bird species and mammals.
Flickering
Northern Flickers are very common to see in Vancouver. Unlike other woodpeckers, they are ground foragers and like to eat ants and berries.
Counting the Stars
During the pandemic lockdowns, I was privileged to continue volunteering with the Stanley Park Ecology Society. It was a great way for me to get out of my house and enjoy the sunshine. I was helping them do intertidal surveys to help them evaluate the health of the intertidal zone. One way of determining this is to count how many sea stars are visible during lowest tide before the seagulls eat them. Here we have four beautiful ochre stars huddled together under a large rock. They look slimy in the photo, but they are actually really tough skinned.
Hooded Merganser Couple
Here we have a female (left) and male (right). Here's how to distinguish between the two, the female's head has a brown raised crest (or I like to call the slicked back mohawk) and the male's head has a black and white unraised crest. Before males reach their breeding stage, their feathers are more similar to the female. So another way you can distinguish between the two when you have an eclipse male is to look at the eye colour. The females will always have brown eyes and the males will have yellow eyes.