On the morning of September, 15, 2014, I stopped at two especially interesting Lancaster County meadows I had visited several times before to experience what was happening at those pastures that beautiful, autumn day. The weather was sunny, with a cool breeze and low humidity, a perfect day to be out.
The first meadow I stopped at is about 20acres in size and has a stream running through it. This pasture has several mature deciduous trees in it, dominated by large pin oaks. Other tree species include sycamores, river birches, red maples, black walnuts and shag-bark hickories, all species of moist soil in bottomlands.
Although the ground in this meadow was mostly covered with short grass that cows graze on, several kinds of flowering plants that thrive best in damp ground were also in this pasture, making it the more lovely. Those plants include bur-marigolds with their yellow flower petals, a kind of asters that have pale lavender blooms and patches of bushy spotted jewelweeds with their orange blossoms that resemble tiny cornucopias.
But it was a variety of small birds that made that pasture the most interesting. The stars, as they have been in that meadow for years, were a family of red-headed woodpeckers, an uncommon species in this area. I saw the two striking adults with their red heads, black upper parts and large, white wing patches and one of their youngsters that fledged this summer and still had a brown head and upper parts. All three woodpeckers were flitting about on a large, dead sycamore, the tree they probably have been nesting in, as they looked for insects in the dead wood and under bits of loose bark. Occasionally, one of the adults chased their offspring off the tree. I guess it was time for the youngster to find a territory of its own.
I also saw a female red-bellied woodpecker fly from one tree to another, probably in search of invertebrate food. This species has black and white striped upper parts and wings. Males have red over the top of their heads and down the back of their necks while females have a bit of red on their necks. The red belly spot on the bellies of each of the males is usually not noticeable.
Red-bellies nest in this pasture, and in most other patches of trees and small woods throughout Lancaster County and much of the eastern United States. They are a common species that pushed north in the 1960's.
A male northern flicker was on a patch of bare ground in the pasture and poking into the soil after ants and their larvae and eggs. Flickers are a kind of woodpecker, but are mostly brown, which camouflages them on the ground, rather than black and white like their relatives. And like all woodpeckers, flickers have long, sticky tongues they run into insect tunnels to snare insects. And those brown woodpeckers also nest in cavities them chip out themselves in dead limbs of trees, as all woodpeckers do.
Several eastern bluebirds of both genders, and young and older, flitted among the trees and to the ground after insects in the short grass. Bluebirds are pretty and thrilling to experience anytime of year. Now they are gathering into small groups, some of which drift south for the winter while others eat berries in the north.
There was a kind of plain, little flycatchers in that meadow that apparently were migrating at night and feeding on flying insects during the day, as they were in that pasture that fall day. Several of those flycatchers perched on twigs and fluttered out to snare insects in mid-air, creating a show.
A few other kinds of common birds were in that meadow that morning. A few blue jays, a white-breasted nuthatch and a pair of Carolina chickadees were there because of the many trees in the pasture. And a small group of American goldfinches. a pair of northern cardinals and a gray catbird hid here and there in thickets in the pasture. All those birds added more beauty and interest to that meadow on that beautiful autumn day.
The other meadow I visited that day is about 30 acres in size and has no trees in it. This pasture also has soil that is constantly moist, creating habitat for flowering plants that need ample sunlight and water to flourish.
Large patches of bur-marigolds with their yellow petals dominated this wet meadow, making it cheery in the bright sunlight. Several bees, butterflies and other insects were among those yellow blooms to get nectar and pollen. And I saw several monarch butterflies among bur-marigold flowers; more monarchs than I had seen all summer. It was encouraging to see all those monarchs among the bur-marigold blossoms because that kind of butterfly lately is down in numbers.
Bur-marigolds only bloom in September. They only occupy wet niches, such as ditches and along small waterways in pastures.
A kind of asters with pale-lavender flowers were also common in that meadow. They offered a lovely contrast of colors with the yellow blooms of the bur-marigolds. This kind of aster is typical of damp soil in open, sunny areas.
And this open, sunny meadow had a smattering of other types of flowering plants, including bonesets, joe-pye weeds, ironweeds, blue vervains and cattails in the wet parts, and Canada goldenrods in the drier sections. That vegetation added much to the diversity and beauty of that sunny meadow. Insects of several kinds were also among the white clusters of boneset blooms, adding more interest to the pasture.
And thinking of insect activity, several green darner dragonflies swooped back and forth across that sunny, wet meadow after small insects to catch in their feet and eat. I could easily see those dragonflies flying in the sunlight, against the dark of a grove of trees in the background.
Green darners migrate each autumn, and I suspect that is what these were doing, and catching flying insects to eat along the way. But whatever they were doing, they were interesting to see.
September is a lovely month and pastures like these, with their birds, flowers and insects, add to that beauty. For an emotional lift, get out in autumn and look for meadows in Lancaster County, and elsewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment