Be Kind to Canes

Reprinted from the Oshkosh Scene newspaper with additional photos of cane beds and birds that nest in them.

The East Channel Canes on Lake Poygan may seem to have a strange name, but once upon a time there was a corresponding West Channel Canes, and even more surprising is this is the place where the Wolf River used to empty into Lake Poygan. Now these few scattered cane beds are all that remain of a huge wetland complex destroyed by flooding, waves and ice. Without restoration these too will be lost.

On the Lake Winnebago Upper Pool lakes there is a rare habitat called cane beds that are popular fish, wildlife, and the human enthusiasts that follow them.  These beds are composed of a native strain of Common Reed (Phragmites australis).  Our native strain is an important part of Wisconsin’s wetland ecosystems, but there is a variety originating from Europe that is highly invasive.  These aquatic plants are the remains of wetlands lost since the damming of the Fox River in the 1850’s.  Where it was firmly rooted it survived the breakup of the surrounding marsh and the near permanent flooding.   Although they are tough plants, and survived the high water, they too have been slowly fading away. 

Forster's Tern chick hiding in reeds

Historically several of the cane beds have been used by colonies of the endangered Forster’s Tern.  If you have never seen a Forster’s tern, picture a gull and cross it with a jet fighter.  These birds are fun to watch.  Terns will cruise around the lakes searching for small fish, and when a bird spots one it begins to hover.  Then locked on its prey, the tern drops from the sky, wings partially folded back, and plunges into the water.  The bird briefly disappears and then flies up and away.  Depending on the time of year the tern may give the fish to its mate, or one of its chicks.  These terns are endangered because their nesting habitat, floating mats of vegetation, are no longer that common.  On the Winnebago Upper Pool Lakes, the cane beds have shrunken and so has the Forster’s Tern population.

click below to see more of the cane beds

Finally a new post.

I've been writing for the Oshkosh Scene newspaper most of this year, my work blog, and I'm back in school, so I haven't been posting here much, but I'll start posting my Scene articles now.  The Oshkosh Scene can be found around Oshkosh for free most places, and it also available in a few newspaper machines. Here is my unedited article for November Issue.  The article was originally written for the Winnebago Water Level Fluctuation Group.

Generations of the Winnebago System

When the first pioneers settled around the Winnebago Pool Lakes in the middle of the nineteenth century, many made a living off the land and water.  Man and nature worked together, and also against one another.  The Fox River was “tamed” by dams, the prairie sod broken, but nature too had her floods and droughts to remind us who really is in charge.  In and around the Winnebago Pool Lakes much of the environment was degraded.  This environmental degradation changed the way people interacted with the land and water.   To understand how let’s follow a fictitious family through history. 

In 1841 a Norwegian man named Theodore Olson and his young wife Anna are settling on the north shore of Lake Poygan.  They have hastily erected a mud and stick house to keep the coming winter storms out.  In just two years time their first home will become the chicken coop, but for now it makes Theodore beam with pride, almost as much as the moose antlers above the door.  That big deer, the last one in the county, will feed this family through the winter. 

Page's Slough Plant Survey

Dense vegetation in Page's Slough

Page’s Slough is a backwater of the Wolf River, just upstream of Lake Poygan, but at first glance it looks like it drains directly into the lake.  Like most things on the Winnebago System, Page’s Slough is big, about 139 acres.  Essentially, it is a shallow water lake.  This big backwater is managed for fish and wildlife habitat.  In the past the slough has had an abundant population of curly-leaf pond weed, an invasive species, and early this summer it was observed to be abundant.  It was feared native plants would be hurt.  Curly-leaf pondweed is different than our native vegetation in that it begins to grow in fall, comes on strong in the spring and early summer, and begins to die back in late June, or early July.  If it came on strong then it might have strangled the native vegetation. 

The Demented Gardener

On a nice day in late August I’m there with Art Techlow, DNR, and my wife and note taker Rebecca.  I stand at the bow with a modified garden rake in hand, looking like some kind of demented gardener.  The rake  is metal, with two sets of teeth back to back, and has an eight foot metal pole.  Art pilots the boat from one predetermined GPS point to another, and I drop the rake down, spin it around and 93% of the time I pull up a green spaghetti of aquatic plants in muck sauce.  Most of the plants are coontail and Canadian waterweed (Elodea); these aren't particularly good plants for waterfowl in themselves, but they feed and hide millions of insects, crustaceans, and small fish relished by the birds.  Page’s Slough is packed with vegetation, the vast majority of it native.  Since this is only an observational study and not an experiment, I can’t say much for sure.  All I know is that this year’s abundant curly-leaf pondweed seems to have had little negative impact, no impact, or an undetermined positive impact on the abundance of native vegetation.  In any case it is good for this lake…I mean slough.

Plant of the Week: Spatterdock (Nuphar advena)

Spatterdock (Nuphar avenda)
West Bay Cane Beds -Lake Poygan

In bloom right now is one of the two species of water-lily that are present in the Winnebago Pool.  Spatterdock, sometimes referred to yellow water-lily (which is actually a different species), can be differentiated between our other species-- white water-lily-- by its heart-shaped leaves.  White water-lily leaves are more circular.  All water-lily leaves have a cleft.   Water lilies are some of those pretty “weeds” that most people don’t mind.  The other reason people tolerate and even love water lilies is because they often hold largemouth bass and northern pike.  Lily pads are home to many species of insects, and later in the summer you can see holes were they have been feeding. Water-lilies are sometimes confused with American lotus which often emerges out of the water on its stalk, and its leaves have no cleft.  Water-lilies are not related to true lilies.

More information on Spatterdock