[Mich-chat] Arctic Tern eats fish.

[Dmcwhir513 at aol.com]

Well, folks, no big news there, I guess.
 
   I had asked in a post to mich-listers for ideas  about what the Arctic 
Tern at the Three Oaks sewage ponds might be  eating. We saw the tern just 
picking at the surface with no plunges.  Thought there might not be any fish 
in the ponds for it to eat. After  I posted, I remembered seeing small fish 
in the tertiary treatment ponds on  south campus at MSU, so ...
 
   Sure enough, Kip Miller and David Pavlik had seen this tern  capture 
small fish, and I got a nice e-mail from 
 
John Kendall of Valparaiso who is a Wastewater Consultant by  trade. Don't 
think he will mind my sharing this:
     
     "I assume that these are final treatment Lagoons  (after Aeration 
Basins) - which can be quite productive and fertile, even  year-round, due to 
plankton from bacteria that polish off relatively small  amounts of BOD food 
that come from the Aeration Basin effluent.   Bacterial/plankton counts will 
be higher than typical area ponds and lakes for  this reason.  This is why 
shorebirds and all sorts of waterbirds tend to  visit these sites in 
migration - concentrated food sources."
 
   I knew these ponds were loaded with inverts - guess I didn't  extend the 
notion to fish.
 
   Wonder if the tern knows how to ice  fish?        Cheers.      - Doug 
McWhirter

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