SUMMER WILDLIFE ON ONALASKA

      Lake Onalaska, a shallow back-water off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, which I have been viewing daily by a live camera at the lake and our computer screen, is a bonanza of handsome water-birds from mid-July through August.  It harbors birds of several kinds in great numbers, which creates lots of daily activities during late July and through August, on water and mud, and in the trees and sky.  

     Part of a wildlife refuge, this vast lake has several shallow channels, broad mud flats, lush marshes of tall grass, cattails and phragmites, arrowhead and purple loosestrife, and islands of willows and other kinds of floodplain trees.  Mats of alga and duckweed clog standing water here and there between mud flats.  Lotus lily pads and pale-yellow flowers and pickerel weeds with stems of pretty, purple blooms emerge in places from shallow, standing water.  And wooded hills rim that whole river backwater and its islands, making the scene look much like the days of American Indians.

     Several kinds of birds we see on our screen raise young at Lake Onalaska, including mallard ducks, majestic Canada geese, striking red-winged blackbirds, sora rails, marsh wrens and song sparrows in the marshes, tree swallows that fledge tree cavities, and stately great blue herons and magnificent bald eagles that nest on stick platforms high in the trees.  The camera shows these birds in their natural habitats, often close-up, going about their daily business of getting food and avoiding predators.

     Meanwhile, groups of non-breeding American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, ring-billed gulls, Caspian terns, great egrets and sand-hill cranes gather on the shallows and flats to rest between fishing forays on the lake.  The pelicans and cormorants often seem to rest together on the mud flats, and the ring-bills and Caspian terns definitely roost together on the flats.  All these beautiful birds consume fish, but catch them in different ways. 

     Groups of stately pelicans work together to herd small fish into shallows.  There the pelicans scoop fish from the water with their large bills.  Cormorants dive under water from the surface to snare fish in their beaks.  Caspian terns dive head-first from the air to snatch smaller fish with their blood-red bills.  Elegant great egrets, like all herons, wade the shallows and reach their long necks and beaks to grab fish from water surfaces.  And ring-bills and majestic sand-hills catch fish from the surfaces, the gulls while swimming and the cranes when wading in the water.  Gulls and cranes also eat anything edible from the shallows and flats.                 

     A variety of lovely, but camouflaged, sandpipers and plovers (shorebirds), down from nesting in northern Canada's tundra, patter over mud flats and wade in inch-deep water to catch and ingest a variety of invertebrates before continuing their migrations farther south to escape the northern winter.  American avocets, black-bellied plovers, lesser yellowlegs, greater yellowlegs, pectoral sandpipers, least sandpipers and other kinds of shorebirds are some of the species I've seen by live camera.  

     Lake Onalaska is a wonderful place to see a variety of water birds through a live camera and computer screens.   One can experience the birds' beauties, elegance and daily habits from home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SPRING ON THE UPPER CHESAPEAKE

      I visited the Upper Chesapeake Bay at the Community Park of Northeast, Maryland one afternoon about the middle of March a few years ago, as I had several times in different seasons before that day.  This time, I went there to spot migrating water birds of various kinds.        Because of their high numbers, gulls and ducks were the dominant birds on the ice, and strips of open water among the slabs of ice because of the warming weather in March.  Most of the handsome ring-billed, herring and great black-backed gulls stood picturesquely on slabs of ice.        The attractive, adult ring-billed and herring gulls are mostly gray on top, white below, and look much alike, except the herrings are larger and have a red mark on their beaks, whereas each ring-bill has a black "ring" around its bill.  Largest of these gulls, the stately, mature black-backs have black backs and upper wings and are white below, making a striking, attractive plumage pattern.        All three of thos
Read more

DADDY-LONG-LEGS

     During summer, over the years in southeastern Pennsylvania, I've seen many daddy-long-legs on the bark of tree trunks on lawns, and in parks and woods.  They blend into the color of tree bark well and are difficult to see.  Many people never see them at all until those camouflaged little critters are pointed out by people in the know about them.        Daddy-long-legs have eight, really long, thin legs, but they are not spiders.  But they are arachnids, and related to spiders.  These attractive, little creatures, called daddy-long-legs because of their long legs, have quarter-inch, compact bodies raised on stilt-like legs.  They have two dark eyes and feel the vibrations of birds and other predators with their legs.  But these arachnids have no venom, or silk to make webs.        Daddy-long-legs, like all other living beings, are part of several food chains.  They consume tiny invertebrates and decaying plant and animal materials they find on tree bark.  And, in turn, many of
Read more

FATHER FINCHES FEEDING FLEDGINGS

     While sitting on our back deck to enjoy the lovely scenery and weather during the afternoon of July 21, 2023, I noticed a tiny, red speck in our tall Norway spruce tree on our suburban lawn in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Peering at that red spot with 16 power binoculars, I saw it was a beautiful male house finch feeding three fledgling house finches; his offspring.  Those gray and dark-streaked young birds fluttered their wings vigorously while being fed invertebrates and seeds.  And the wild charm of those birds was decidedly enhanced by the deep-green of the needled spruce boughs.        Those four house finches were a lovely, exciting sight to me.  I know that species of small birds raises young in our neighborhood every summer, including a pair of house finches that hatch offspring on a support under an awning over our deck.  But never before had I watched a father house finch feed his young outside their twig and grass cradle.  And when that male finch flew off the spruce lim
Read more