Pelicans ~ Kamloops Lake ~ Kamloops, BC

I used to understand pelicans to be a coastal bird so it should be a rare one for our area of Kamloops, BC but that just isn’t so.  The Brown Pelican is the one who lives along the coastal waters, some of whom we have seen before but that was during visits in the Southern US.  The American White Pelican visits Kamloops so we’re going to visit them.

Pelican coming in for landing on Kamloops Lake, BC

The American White Pelican has been making Kamloops a stopover on their migration travels from their homes farther north.  There are several places they spend the summer months in before making their way south for the winter.  They’ve been seen in other places on their stopovers in our area but our visit with them was at Cooney Bay on Kamloops Lake this year.

Pelicans group fishing

In the summer months, they nest in colonies from NE California to as far north as the Northwest Territories then migrate south in September or October.  They spend the winter months near the Pacific Coast and Gulf of Mexico as far south as Panama, preferring estuaries and lakes.  

Pelican having a drink

The American White Pelican will avoid open ocean on their migrations and favor desert and mountain areas for their travels.  I recently heard about the Australian pelican that gather by the thousands at an inland lake only to have to abandon many of their young who are too young to fly hundreds of kilometers to survive as the lake dries up in the summer heat.  Thankfully this isn't a problem in this country.

Pelicans follow the leader

 The Brown Pelican will dive into the water for their fish, or wait for fisherman’s scraps on the pier as we watched in Texas, but the White catches their fish while swimming.  Their head only will be below water when they catch the fish in their big bill taking in up to 20 litres then straining out the water.

Pelican sees a fish

We saw a flock of pelicans on a visit to the Salton Sea in Southern California last spring.  There are lots of fish in this sea which makes for a great feeding area for them.  Tilapia in abundance would make fishing easy for these large birds.  Click here to see those, some of whom just may be in Kamloops first, and learn more about their size and wing span. 

Fish sighting causes some excitement

The pelican is a very large bird and adults will eat 4 pounds of fish every day.  The pelicans are usually in a group of 12 or more and will corral the fish for one another. There are times they fight over the catch but I guess that would depend on the supply; there did not appear to be any fighting here.  

Fish sighting 

These pelicans were near where the Tranquille Creek comes into the lake, bringing a supply of fish to them including the rainbow trout.  They’d float back and forth near the mouth of the creek and occasionally we’d see one reach down for a fish, this often brought a flurry of others to that spot, too. 

Pelican scatter across Kamloops Lake, BC

We counted about 30 pelicans on Kamloops Lake this day, many more than the 3 or 4 we’d seen on a visit here a week earlier. They were spread over a large area of the lake and we likely did not see all of them, we’d heard there were a lot more on this visit.

Pelican came up empty

Pelicans were removed from the national endangered species list in 1987 but they’re still considered endangered in Alberta and protected in all of Canada. The numbers have increased but not to the point they’ve been in the past, but hopefully that will change.

Pelicans coming in for a landing

The pelicans don’t stay for long so it was a great treat to be able to see them during their brief stay here. They’re making their way south for the winter months then return to their nesting grounds in March and April. It was entertaining to watch them come in for their landings, which is skipping along the water until they slow down enough to land. 

Kamloops Lake, BC

The access to Cooney Bay is easy when the lake is at the low level of the season.  It was very windy on our first visit but the second time was better making it easy to walk to the mouth of Tranquille Creek and sit on the sand or driftwood to watch the pelicans.  

What a great way to spend some time and just another reason why there is no place like home.

Tranquille Wildlife Management Area ~ Herons ~ Pelicans ~ Kamloops, BC, Canada

We love Kamloops for all that it has to offer and that includes the visitors that we get. We were enjoying a nearby park recently and I was surprised to find one of those visitors, who flew up into a tree while I was looking at the flowers ! I did not know what he was, but was taking lots of pictures and now I was on a mission to find out. The first thing I had to do was get my pictures onto my computer to get a better look at him. The next thing I would do is put the binoculars in the car for future surprise visitors !

 

Visiting heron on McArthur Island

What I had taken a picture of was a visiting heron. He wasn’t exactly the color that I was familiar with but then, I hadn’t seen herons in Kamloops before. There are more than one kind and this one appears to be a different color from the Great Blue Heron (clik here to read more) that we had seen on our RV adventures.

Tranquille Wildlife Management area in July

We had visited the Tranquille Wildlife Management area in July and the water covered a much larger area then. In 1989 there were 245 hectares of land designated as the Tranquille Wildlife Management Area in order to manage valuable wetland habitat for waterfowl and other species that were dependent on the wetlands. 

Tranquille WMA with high water

This area 18 km (10 mi) west of Kamloops where the Thompson River enters Kamloops Lake, is typically flooded from mid May to mid July due to the spring runoff into the Thompson River and is part of the Lac du Bois Grasslands Protected area.

Canada Geese sit on fencepost

The Canada Geese were using fence posts to perch on due to the high water in July.  They are regular visitors, if not residents at many places in Kamloops. Typical fowl found in the wetlands aside from the Canada Geese are swans, mallards, Goldeneye and Wood Ducks.

Canada Geese and goslings in July

With the water so high, it came close to the roadside. I was able to see the Canada Geese and their young as they swam over the fence ! The best birdwatching time at the Tranquille WMA is March, April, May, Sept, Oct., and November but it looks like we have visitors during summer months, too.

 

Tranquille WMA with low water in August

Now that we knew the park visitor was a heron, we were on our way out to see the Tranquille Wildlife Management area again as my search for answers had said that there were visiting herons out there. Now we know where the visiting heron was likely headed to, he had just missed his target by 18 km (10 mi) !

A flock of heron at Tranquille WMA

We found the rest of his flock, hopefully he did, too. The article (clik to read that article) I found said that there were Great Blue Herons out there, and this was written by Rob Butler, so I will believe they were gray herons. The same article said there were other visitors out there, too and this I had to see with my own
eyes !

Pelicans at Tranquille WMA

These wetlands are resting areas for spring and fall migration but nothing would have made me expect these visitors in the middle of our summer months, let alone these ones. There were four large white pelicans swimming around the pond.

 

Visiting Pelicans in Kamloops, BC, Canada

It isn’t possible to get close to the pond so it was difficult to get pictures of the pelicans. They were busy diving for food and were swimming very quickly but I did manage to get some proof that they were really visiting Kamloops on this August afternoon. The only other time we’d seen white pelicans was on our visit to Texas during our RV adventure.

We know that Kamloops is the chosen destination for many visitors but these ones are here without many people knowing it, and I am glad to be one that does.

This tells another reason why we love Kamloops ~ there is just no place like home.