Brown Along Stream Banks

I stopped along a creek in Lancaster county farmland one late afternoon in May. The stream bank was lined and shaded by large riparian trees, including sycamores, silver maples, ash-leafed maples, and black walnuts. During the few minutes I was there I saw a Mallard hen with several ducklings on the water, a pair of Spotted Sandpipers dancing on the muddy shore, and a few Northern Rough-winged Swallows cruising low over the water to catch flying insects. These birds and other species are mostly brown, that camouflages them around waterways. Their habitats make creatures the way they are.

The brown mottled female Mallards and Wood Ducks and their young are hard to see on the water, in the shadows under overhanging tree limbs along a waterway shoreline. That coloring protects them from hawks and other predators. 

Spotted Sandpipers, Killdeer plovers, and Song Sparrows move along muddy shores in comparative safety because of their brown feathering on top. They are in that niche to eat invertebrates.

Northern Rough-winged Swallows are brown because they nest in holes they dig themselves in taller stream banks. These swallows fly over the adjoining waterway to catch invertebrates. 

Cedar Waxwings and Eastern Phoebes perch in trees hanging over the waterway as they watch for flying insects that they catch in mid-air. The waxwings nest among the twigs of the trees while the phoebes raise young on support beams under small bridges. 

Muskrats and mink live along streams and are brown like the stream banks, for camouflage. Muskrats dig burrows at the water line and mink commandeer some muskrat burrows after killing and eating the muskrats.

When along stream banks, look for some of these camouflaged critters!

Photo courtesy of Kaw Valley Heritage Alliance

Barn Swallows

Barn Swallows are common everywhere in Lancaster county farmland in summer because they have the best of two worlds. There are many local impoundments, barnyards, and meadows where these swallows catch abundant flying insects, and lots of barns and bridge support beams where they raise young in mud pellet nests. 

Barn Swallows are pretty little birds that are deep iridescent purple above and orange below, with long forked tails for maneuvering in mid-air. They are graceful in flight while hunting flying insects, and quite entertaining. 

These swallows follow large grazing livestock in pastures and moving machinery in fields to snap up insects flushed by those big objects. The swallows even fly over flocks of blackbirds in summer fields to catch insects those larger foraging birds chase up.

This kind of swallow plasters mud pellets to the sides of support beams in barns and under bridges. Farmers like them because of the insects that they eat. The swallows gather bits of mud and roll them in their beaks to make the pellets they stick to those beams and each other, one pellet after another, to make their open-cup cradles. Parent swallows defend their young by diving at intruders and crying "skeet! skeet!"

Eating only flying insects, Barn Swallows must migrate to Central and South America for the northern winter. But next April they will return to Lancaster county cropland in abundance, to raise offspring and catch many insects to feed their youngsters, making this species valuable to farmers.

Photo courtesy of Stefan Berndtsson