Tag Archives: life stories

Four Foraging Stories from the Flyway

October 24, 2021: Mississippi Flyway

It’s late October and the birds we watch on the Mississippi Flyway are pouring south while local plant and animal populations dwindle in response to diminishing daylight length, colder temperatures, and reduced food availability. How do migrating birds find enough to eat in the diverse, rapidly changing habitats they travel through? Read these four foraging stories to learn more about how birds cope with the challenge of finding food on migration! River Dreaming Picture a Mississippi River lake: a lake

Four Migration Stories from the Flyway

June 28, 2021: Sandhill cranes on the Mississippi Flyway

We are seeing so many birds on the Flyway that I’m thinking about hiring an air traffic controller! We’ve identified 68 species of birds so far, 82% of which require water-based or water-adjacent habitat to nest, forage, and roost. Why do so many birds stop here? Lake Onalaska is an island of habitat for birds migrating south along the Mississippi River through the American interior. The lake’s islands, sandbars, braided channels, floodplain forests, and mudflats provide birds with everything they