What other Wingra visitors are enjoying this weather?

Lake Wingra Monitoring Volunteers Update – April 19, 2019

Figure 1. A male and female Red Breasted Mergansers on Lake Wingra

For the last three days, a flock of Red Breasted Mergansers have stopped on our lake to rest and feed (Figure 1 and featured image above). We saw them diving in the lake to catch fish – their most common source of food. They winter in coastal areas mostly in salt water. After stopping on Lake Wingra they will be heading to the forest and tundra of Alaska and Canada to breed. They nest on the ground near a body of water. See the link below for more information. Since our little lens on our camera (a birthday is coming) could not fully capture the beauty of these birds we have included photo from the Audubon web site (Figure 3). https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-breasted-merganser

At least a couple of Loons (Figure 4) have also made their way to Lake Wingra before heading north. We look forward to going north this summer to hear them making their wonderful calls near our campsites. We don’t have any pictures yet, but the Coots have started to arrive on the lake. More frequently we are seeing a Sandhill Crane along our walking path (Figure 5).

Figure 5. A sandhill crane near swimming beach

Good news, the fishing pier near the swimming beach is back in service (Figure 6).

Figure 6. One of the volunteers on the recently installed fishing pier.

We hope to see you on the lake,

Your monitoring volunteers