Oxbow Lakes

great habitat left by a meandering river...

You’ll find an oxbow lake, rich with birdlife, at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Montana. The lake was initially a meander in the Missouri River, left when the river took a short cut; the abandoned loop became Lake Bowdoin. Large numbers of Ring-billed, Franklin’s and California gulls, White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and White-faced Ibises breed on an island in the middle of the lake – and thereby avoid mammalian predators. And not only is Bowdoin a national wildlife refuge, but it’s also a Globally Important Bird Area and a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site!

Full Transcript

Transcript:

BirdNote^®

Oxbow Lakes

Written by Gordon Orians

    This is BirdNote.
[Calls of Ring-billed Gulls and American White Pelicans]
If you were a Ring-billed Gull or a White Pelican ready to build a nest and raise your young, you’d try to find an island. Why? Because islands provide protection from mammalian predators.
    [Continue Ring-billed Gull calls]
And where you might find such a place? Near a large river, slowly meandering through flat country. A winding river may take a shortcut through a narrow neck of land creating a new, straighter channel. When it does, the abandoned meander loop becomes an oxbow lake. Oxbow? The name comes from the curve of an oxen yoke. And these lakes often have islands.
    [Calls of Ring-billed Gulls and American White Pelicans]
You’ll find an oxbow lake, rich with birdlife, at Bowdoin [buh-DOYN] National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Montana. The lake was initially a meander in the Missouri River. Large numbers of Ring-billed, Franklin’s, and California gulls, White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants and White-faced Ibises breed on an island in the middle of the lake. They forage over hundreds of square miles rich in food but lacking in islands where the birds can safely nest.
    [Lapping of water of the lake]
We’re fortunate that many important oxbow lakes are protected by our National Wildlife Refuge System. Why not head out and explore some of these special places for yourself?
For BirdNote I’m Michael Stein.
###
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Call of adult Ring-billed Gull 3334 recorded by R.S. Little; American White Pelican chick 1985 by R.S. Little.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2012 Tune In to Nature.org     June 2012   Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# oxbowlake-01-2012-06-24          oxbowlake-01