EARLY-SPRING WATERBIRD MIGRANTS

      During March and into April of 2021, I had been watching migrating birds stopping at Lake Onalaska, a lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, which is part of the Mississippi Flyway, through a live camera and our home computer screen.  

     Lake Onalaska was mostly frozen early in March.  But as soon as the ice started melting close to mid-March, the lake, and the sky above it, became full of handsome, graceful, north-bound birds of several kinds.  Every species of bird has unique beauties and intrigues.  Each kind is built for what it does in its unique niche to get food and raise young.    

     It was interesting to see several majestic bald eagles arriving on Lake Onalaska in mid-March to join relatives who wintered there.  And it was intriguing to see some of those eagles jumping on thin ice to break it and extract dead fish from it.  

     By the second week of March, several stately sandhill cranes returned to Lake Onalaska's many shallows, mud flats and grassy islands to feed on seeds, invertebrates, fish, mice and almost anything else edible in those habitats.  One can hear the sandhills calling and see them doing their enhancing courtship dances through the live camera.

     Several kinds of beautiful "puddle" ducks, including mallards, northern pintails, green-winged teal, American wigeons, gadwalls and northern shovelers, came back to Lake Onalaska during the second week in March.  Several times, I saw the majority of these duck species together, "tipping up" to reach their shovel-like beaks down to the bottom of shallows to scoop up aquatic vegetation and invertebrates.  These duck species stayed on the lake for a few weeks, at least, but most of them move on to their nesting areas farther west and north.  

     About the same time, three kinds of striking "river" ducks, common goldeneyes, buffleheads and common mergansers, arrived at Lake Onalaska as its ice continued to melt.  These ducks dive into deeper water to get food; the goldeneyes and buffleheads for aquatic plants and invertebrates and the mergansers after small fish.  The drakes of these different river duck species have black and white feather patterns.  They probably are somewhat similar in feathering because they share the same habitat.  

     By the third week in March "rafts" of bay ducks bobbed on the lake, including lesser scaups and canvasbacks.  These handsome species also dive under deep water to feed on water vegetation.

     About mid-March, boisterous flocks of stately Canada geese joined their few relatives that wintered on Lake Onalaska.  Some pairs of them will stay to raise goslings.  

     And, in mid-March, gatherings of elegant tundra swans and iconic ring-billed gulls landed on the ice-free shallows and mud flats of the lake.  Individuals of both species rest and feed on the lake for a few weeks, but then they move on to their nesting territories, the swans on the Arctic tundra and the gulls around the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River and lakes in Canada.        

     Male red-winged blackbirds gathered on islands of tall grasses where they perch on the tips of vegetation to sing "kon-ga-reeeee" to attract mates for raising young.  Those black males are striking with their red shoulders.

     White pelicans arrived on Lake Onalaska around the third week in March.  They rest and feed on fish in the lake, but, eventually, move north to Canada's many lakes to rear offspring.  Pelicans are graceful in flight, flapping and soaring together in long lines, forming lovely ballets in the sky. 

     Entertaining swarms of tree swallows arrived on Lake Onalaska in the third week in March.  They sweep swiftly and gracefully over the lake, all day, every day, after flying insects. 

     Early in April, I saw more species of migrating birds in groups on Lake Onalaska, including the beautiful blue-winged teal ducks, ruddy ducks, pectoral sandpipers, dunlin sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs sandpipers, Caspian terns and Bonaparte's gulls.  The sandpipers fattened up on invertebrates on the muddy flats of the lake before continuing their migration north to hatch young.  Migrant Caspian terns rested on the flats between fishing forays, but soon moved farther north to their breeding areas.  

     Flocks of pretty, black-headed Bonaparte's gulls cruised low over the river to snatch up tiny fish and other tidbits in their beaks.  They continually flutter up and down and drop to the water to get food.  But they soon move to lakes in Canada's forests where they build nests in spruce trees to rear young.

     Lake Onalaska is busy in spring with its many kinds of migrating birds.  But most of those migrants move on to their breeding territories.  I saw all the above via a live camera and our home computer.       

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