AUTUMN ONALASKA WILDLIFE

      Lake Onalaska, a large backwater off the Mississippi River, was full of birds from September to mid-November of 2022.  I daily saw those birds via a live camera on the Mississippi Flyway in Wisconsin and our home computer screen.  

     Non-breeding American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants and ring-billed gulls dominated the shallows and mudflats of Onalaska during September.  All these birds are fish-eaters, but catch their prey in different ways.  Groups of pelicans float in a line in shallow water to herd fish into schools.  Then the pelicans, all together, lunge forward with beaks open and in the water to scoop up bunches of fish.  Cormorants dive under water from the surface to snare fish in their bills, one at a time.  And gulls catch fish from the surface of the water.  Gulls also scavenge dead fish. 

     Little groups of red-winged blackbirds swayed on the tops of wild rice plants on Onalaska islands to consume kernels of wild rice during September.  Those lovely birds help liven the islands in fall. 

     Migrant gatherings of several kinds of beautiful and intriguing shorebirds, that nested farther north, including on the Arctic tundra, were scattered, and camouflaged, across mudflats and shallows to ingest invertebrates during September and October.  Those shorebirds included least and pectoral sandpipers, dunlin, lesser yellowlegs, golden and black-bellied plovers and avocets.  Plovers were mostly on the flats while yellowlegs and avocets waded in the shallows to get food.  These related birds all feed well, with minimal competition for food, by feeding in different parts of mudflats and shallows. 

     October is the most exciting month of migrating birds at Onalaska.  The pelicans and cormorants were still there.  And they were joined by hundreds of migrating Franklin's gulls, many of which still sported black heads, looking much like the laughing gulls of America's east coast.

     In October, northern harriers, peregrine falcons and an increase in bald eagles were seen at Onalaska.  Harriers hunted mice in the lake's marshes, while the falcons preyed on shorebirds and redwings.  The eagles, of course, caught fish and ducks to eat.  Eagles do much scavenging as well.  And, in October, a couple pairs of bald eagles were perched on, or near, their bulky, stick nurseries high in tall trees on the lake's islands.   

     Flocks of Canada geese and sandhill cranes in October bolstered the numbers of each species that were there through summer.  It was thrilling to see their numbers and hear their piercing voices on the computer.

     Flocks of several kinds of puddle ducks, including mallards, American wigeons, gadwalls, and many northern pintails, arrived on Onalaska in October.  They livened the flats and shallows with their great numbers, especially when they "tipped-up" to scrape aquatic vegetation off the bottoms of shallows.   

     And in November, numbers of tundra swans stopped at Onalaska to rest and feed on aquatic plants after their long trip down from their nesting grounds on the Arctic tundra.  The swans added another touch of elegance to Onalaska, and overlapped with the white pelicans remaining there.  

     Most of these birds will leave Onalaska when it freezes over.  But for now, they are exciting to see along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.      


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