SUMMER AT LAKE ONALASKA

     Lake Onalaska, an 8,400-acre backwater off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, is a wildlife refuge of several habitats, including islands of tall grass and wild rice, islands of large, riparian trees, large mud flats, channels of shallow water and deeper water.  And during summer it is loaded with flocks of several kinds of birds that are noticeable on computer screens because of a live camera in the refuge.  Lake Onalaska is one of the best places in the United States to experience a diversity of wildlife in big numbers in summer, whether in person, or by computer screen.

     A beautiful background of distant wooded hills bordering the Mississippi adds to the grandeur of Lake Onalaska.  It's like beauty in a lovely shell.

     Flocks of non-breeding American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants and ring-billed gulls rest on the flats and in the shallows through much of the day, everyday, during summer.  All these birds are fish-eaters, but catch their prey in different ways.  Pelican groups work together to herd and surround small fish into schools in the shallows, then all those large, elegant birds together dip their beaks in the water to scoop up the fish they surrounded.  Cormorants dive individually from the water's surface to catch fish in their bills.  And ring-bills catch small fish from the surface of water and scavenge dead fish of any size.  These gulls also scavenge most anything they can.

     Many each of post-breeding great egrets and Caspian terns join pelicans, cormorants and ring-bills on the flats and shallows by mid-summer.  Interestingly, Caspian terns habitually hang out with ring-billed gulls on flats and shallows.  

     Stately egrets and graceful terns are also fish catchers, but have different body builds and styles to do so.  Egrets and herons stalk slowly and carefully on long legs through shallows as they watch for fish, frogs and other prey.  When a victim is spotted, they throw their lengthy necks forward quick as a flash and seize the prey in their long beaks.

     Terns hover on beating wings in the air and watch the water for small fish.  When finny prey is noticed, terns abruptly drop to the water, beak first, with a splash, to grab the victim in their bills.

     I have seen several kinds of birds, including several  pairs of majestic bald eagles, a pair of peregrine falcons, at least one pair of stately sandhill cranes, many red-winged blackbirds, tree swallows, mallard ducks, wood ducks and Canada geese, and a couple of yellow warblers and common yellow-throat warblers, by live camera at Onalaska and our computer screen in summer.  I assume these species, and others, nest at the lake.  The eagles would nest on large trees on islands, while the peregrines raised young on a cliff overlooking Onalaska.  Cranes, mallards and geese hatched young on the ground of grassy islands, while red-wings and the warblers reared offspring among grasses and shrubbery on those same overgrown islands.  And wood ducks and tree swallows hatched youngsters in tree cavities.

     Several kinds of cold-blooded creatures are also noticed by the camera people at Lake Onalaska, including snails, whirligig beetles, northern leopard frogs and bull frog tadpoles in the shallows, false map turtles and soft-shelled turtles sunning themselves on trees fallen into the shallows, and mayflies, dragonflies, damselflies, beetles and grasshoppers on grass stems on islands.  All these creatures help make viewing Onalaska on our computer the more interesting to me, and other people as well.  

     White waterlilies, lotus lilies and purple loosestrife bloom beautifully in shallow water and on the flats.  Lotus blossoms are pale-yellow and develop seed pods that look like shower heads with their several holes.  Seeds drop from the cavities in lotus seed heads. 

     Late in summer, several each of pelicans, cormorants, ring-bills, Canada geese and mallard ducks still heavily populate the flats and shallows of Onalaska.  Swarms of post-breeding tree swallows, and their young, careen low over the lake to catch flying insects, creating quite an exciting show for bird watchers.  And now, too, several kinds of sandpipers and plovers, (shorebirds) congregate on the mud flats and in shallow water for several weeks into autumn, before migrating farther south to avoid the northern winter and find ample invertebrate food.  

     Most of those shorebirds arrive from the Arctic tundra where they raised young.  They include least, semi-palmated, stilt and pectoral sandpipers, short-billed dowitchers, avocets, two kinds of yellowlegs, and semi-palmated, black-bellied and golden plovers.  They all probe their beaks into mud on flats or in shallows for worms, aquatic insects and other tidbits, but not in the same places, reducing competition for food.  For example, plovers get most of their food from the surface of mud.  But yellowlegs and dowitchers, having longer legs and bills, pull invertebrates from mud under inches-deep water. 

     Lake Onalaska is a wonderful place to enjoy nature, whether a person is there, or viewing it on a computer screen.  And many wildlife species have another place to live and raise young, which bolsters their populations.