Adaptable Creatures in Parks

     I visited two locations in the Middle Atlantic States in January, 2015 where I saw a limited variety of birds and animals, but large numbers of the adaptable, wintering species that were there.  The two places were Northeast, Maryland a backwater at the top of the Chesapeake Bay and Long's Park with its many mature trees in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
     Ring-billed gulls, Canada geese and fish crows were constantly active in big numbers on the ice, water and lawns of Northeast on the Upper Chesapeake, and in the air over Northeast.  There were also a few each of herring gulls, great black-backed gulls and great blue herons on the ice among the many resting ring-bills.  Feathers and bird poop were highly visible everywhere on the ice, indicating birds in big numbers were there continually from the time the ice formed.  The birds and their activities were seen from a public park along the Northeast Creek where it enters the bay in Northeast.     
     All those birds in large numbers put on quite a show the whole time I was in that shoreline park.  A few of the ring-bills chased each other for tidbits of food that was found.  The ring-bills were also constantly coming and going in the air, perhaps to feeding fields and hack to the water and ice to rest in comparative safety.  The sky was often full of ring-billed gulls, both near and far. 
     The ring-bills soar gracefully and form  swirling "kettles" of themselves in the air.  Occasionally those ring-bills left the ice, water and lawn in one big mass of thousands when a bald eagle flew over them.  That cloud of gulls would whirl over the Northeast neck of the estuary, then settle on the ice, water and lawn again.           
     Hundreds of Canada geese were on a large lawn to eat grass when I first arrived at the park.  But after a while, they walked, then flew, to the water and ice of the backwater where they rested, socialized and preened their feathers until hungry again.  Canadas also regularly fly to nearby harvested cornfields where they consume corn kernels lying in the fields.  But they go back to the bay for safety when done feeding in the fields. 
     The fish crows were constantly noisy with their incessant, nasal cawing that sounds different than the cawing of American crows, a way to identify the two species.  These crows were in the trees, and standing on lawns and ice when not feeding.  Like gulls, crows of every kind are scavengers, eating anything edible they can handle in a variety of habitats, including in fields, on lawns and mall parking lots, the shores of larger bodies of water and so on.  The few hours I was at the Northeast Park, some of the fish crows and ring-bills were walking slowly on a lawn to ingest any edibles they could find.  But both these species of birds can fly some distance to get food, then come back to the park to rest and digest in safety.
     Long's Park has many large Norway spruce trees and a variety of mature, majestic deciduous trees, including sugar maples, red oaks, American beeches, sycamores, tulip trees and some kind of ash,  that are as attractive in winter as they are any other season.  The brownish-gray bark of those trees is pretty when highlighted by snow on the ground.  Some of the bigger trees, particularly sugar maples, are riddled with holes where wind ripped limbs off the trees, exposing the wood underneath to agents of decay, including weather, insects and fungi. 
     Gray squirrels live in great abundance at Long's Park, partly because of the many hollows in the stately trees they live in.  I see several of these squirrels every time I visit the park throughout the year.  There they eat acorns, seeds and berries, and hand outs from well-meaning people.
     Sometimes in winter I see one or two red-tailed hawks perched in tall trees in the park.  Those hawks are watching for gray squirrels to catch and eat. 
     And sometimes there is a pair of great horned owls nesting in a high conifer in the park.  They, too, will kill squirrels, but usually at dawn and dusk when both the owls and squirrels are active. 
     In recent years, thousands of noisy American crows, that nest in forests in Canada and winter here in Lancaster County, as well as other places in the Lower 48, stage each late afternoon in winter in the tall trees of Long's Park before roosting in trees there and in trees in nearby Park City shopping mall.  Those crows create an intriguing, inspiring spectacle for over an hour as they stream into Long's Park from every direction, making the black lake of themselves in the tops of many of the taller trees become ever larger where they caw boisterously all the while.  Those great flocks of noisy crows are neat to see under clear, sunny skies or cloudy ones, and especially with snow on the ground and in the trees.  Like gulls, sometimes the whole mass of crows lifts off the trees, with a terrific racket of scornful voices, circles in the sky, then lands on the trees again.
     These are just a couple of public, manicured places where adaptable species of creatures winter in spite of human activities.  Those animals have a future because they are so adaptable and we people benefit from enjoying them.                

Waterfowl Wonders

     I have pleasant memories of three inspiring encounters with migrant geese and swans early in spring over the years in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  The first is about Canada geese one morning early in March when I lived in Neffsville.  I was in our yard early in the morning when I noticed a few flocks of loudly honking Canada geese flying directly north low over our neighborhood.  Then I saw more groups and more coming from the south and heading north right over our neighborhood, from horizon to horizon. What a sight, and their bugling was nearly deafening.  Now my eyes were riveted to the sky to see what would unfold. 
     As the morning progressed, the hordes of Canada geese became continuous, with several flocks in view at once over our neighborhood.  I could see gangs of them from horizon to horizon in all directions.  By this time I thought all the Canada geese that nest in Canada were leaving the Chesapeake Bay at once and going north to their breeding territories.  What a dramatic, inspiring sight they were, all heading north, honking loudly, wave after wave.  The combination of time of year, longer periods of daylight each succeeding day and warmer temperatures finally pushed those geese into the first lap of their migration north to their nesting grounds in eastern Canada  
     It wasn't until late morning that they had finally gone by and I could go in the house to warm up and calm my senses from such a wild, dramatic wonder as those north-bound Canada geese. 
     After dusk when the sunset was almost gone one evening early in March of another year, I noticed airborne tundra swans circling fields around Neffsville as if they wanted to land on one of them to feed on waste corn kernels on the ground.  I walked a half mile out to a field of corn stubble where it looked like the swans would land and laid on my back among the stubble and faced the remnant sunset.  Soon the swans started coming down to the field, bit by bit, silhouetted dark against the western sky.  Many of them repeatedly vocalized their soft, pleasant, "woo-hoo, woo-hoo,hoo". 
     Some of the swans came down within several yards of me lying quietly on my back in that field.  Apparently they didn't see me.  I laid there for a while listening to the swans and seeing some of them parachute down to the field in the light of a three-quarter moon. 
     But after a while I had to go home.  I slowly rolled over, stood up and walked quietly out of the field, alarming some nearby swans into flight as I progressed.  I walked home still listening to those swans as they fed on waste corn kernels.
     The third encounter of migrant waterfowl was hordes of snow geese at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area.  My wife and I drove there to see the snow geese and tundra swans, again around the beginning of March.  We saw the snows were leaving the large, human-made impoundment, flock after flock, and landing in a field near a road.  We drove to that road, parked near where the snow geese were coming down and stayed in the car.  We opened a couple of windows a bit to hear the high-pitched honking of the snow geese.  Other people were doing the same, although some of them got out of their vehicles, which didn't seem to disturb the geese. 
     As each noisy gang of snow geese came down to the field, it landed closer to the road.  Then some groups of snows landed on the other side of the road.  We were closely surrounded by bugling snow geese as if we were in their flock.  And, in a way, we were!  What a thrill; snow geese all around us feeding in the fields.
     But, as is their way, the thousands of snows all took flight at once at one point in time, though I couldn't see what startled them.  They went up with a deafening roar of voices and wings, blocking out the background scenery as would a blizzard and went aloft, with never a collision among their fellows.  Again, what an inspiring, exciting sight they were. 
     But within a few weeks, or a month, of staging here in Lancaster County as they wait for spring to catch up to their restless urges, the tundra swans and snow geese continue their migration north, little by little to their nesting territories on the Arctic tundra.  Winter weather farther north stops them for a while, but soon they are continuing north again, entering the tundra about the middle of May.
     Although these birds are inspiring and exciting to experience, in a way I am glad to see them going farther north.  Those great flocks of waterfowl are wonderful, but my emotions can take them only for so long.  I need to get away from them to rest my worn-out emotions.    
     These are just a few examples of inspiring nature in Pennsylvania.  There are innumerable others, all over the world.               

Field Birds' Alternate Foods

     Several kinds of wintering, seed-eating birds, including horned larks and their sparrow-sized associates, a variety of waterfowl, rock pigeons, mourning doves, American crows, house sparrows and savannah sparrows, consume corn kernels and weed and grass seeds from manure strips in fields, horse droppings on rural roads, and country roadsides cleared of snow after snow buries that food in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, as elsewhere.  Most of these birds are difficult to see before a snowfall because of their blending into their usual open, wind-swept environment.  But snow makes them more visible to us. 
     After a snowfall, manure is spread on top of the snow.  Bits of corn kernels, chewed by livestock, but not digested, are in those strips of livestock droppings.  Several kinds of open-country birds are on those manure strips, many kinds at once, putting on an interesting show.  Flocks of sparrow-sized horned larks, sometimes with a few each of equally-sized, tundra-breeding snow buntings and Lapland longspurs in them, walk on the manure to pick out bits of corn with their small beaks.  Meanwhile, gatherings of pigeons, doves, crows, house sparrows and savannah sparrows do the same.  However, permanent resident mallard ducks and Canada geese, and north-bound snow geese and tundra swans early in spring scoop out corn with their large, shovel-like bills.          
     When snow buries weed and grass seeds and corn kernels in the fields, some groups of horned larks and their allies, and house sparrows and savannah sparrows, feed on bits of corn in horse droppings on country roads.  It's always interesting to see these little birds on those "road apples" to get food.  The birds are quick enough to zip into the air at the approach of an occasional vehicle, then drop to the road again to get food from the horse manure. 
     And as snow plows clear rural roads of snow, they scrape many stretches of the shoulders free of snow as well, thus exposing weed  and grass seeds and tiny bits of stones to the small, cropland birds desperate for food in their open habitat.  Again, horned larks and their associates, pigeons, doves, house sparrows and savannah sparrows ingest weed and grass seeds.  And they also consume the small stones, which grind the seeds in their powerful stomachs, aiding digestion of that hard food.
     Though Lancaster County cropland looks bleak in winter, with little or no food and shelter, that farmland is more populated with hardy, adaptable species of birds than most people realize.  And those birds know how to get alternate foods when their usual foods are buried by snow.        

Adaptable, Wintering, Farmland Birds

     The day after a couple of days of light snow toward the end of January, 2015, I drove through farmland that was harvested to the ground a few miles south of New Holland, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  My goal, again, was to see how field birds and birds around seepages and trickles of clear, running water adapted to the three to four inches of snow on the ground.
     As I drove slowly through that cropland for a couple of hours, I saw the usual field hawks of mid-winter, including an American kestrel on a roadside wire watching for field voles (a kind of mouse) and six red-tailed hawks that were looking for any kind of prey they could handle.  Two of the red-tails were a mated pair.
     I saw a few flocks each of rock pigeons and starlings on the snow in the fields as they poked their beaks under the snow to get corn kernels still on the ground.  Both these species are from European farmland, but they adapted well to American cropland and are permanent residents in agricultural areas and cities in this country.  I also saw a few mourning doves and several crows in the fields to eat whatever waste corn they could find.  Doves and crows are native birds that have adapted to farmland to get food through the year. 
     But, as usual, many large flocks of northern horned larks were the dominate species of birds in those extensive fields.  They are called horned because they have two black feather tufts on their heads that resemble horns.  They have yellow faces highlighted by patterns of black.  But being mostly brown and the size of sparrows, horned larks are not often noticed until snow covers the ground.  Then they are more obvious because snow takes away their camouflage and the birds settle on roadsides to eat tiny stones, exposed by snow plows, that help grind the seeds in their stomachs. 
     Horned larks get seeds and bits of corn kernels from bare parts of the fields where wind blew the snow away.  Those bare spots shift position at the whim of the wind, and grow larger as the snow gradually melts away.  Flocks of larks fly in bounding flight low to the fields quite often in their search for seeds and bits of corn on the ground.
     But the little seepages and trickles of clear, running water, some of them partly choked with water cress plants, and all of them free of ice and snow in winter in farmland meadows in Lancaster County are more interesting than the fields after a snowfall.  Here wintering Wilson's snipe, which is a kind of inland sandpiper, poke their long beaks into mud under the shallow water after a variety of aquatic invertebrates.  But snipe are almost impossible to see until they fly or otherwise move because they are beautifully brown, streaked with black markings that allow them to blend into their surroundings.
     That day in late January, 2015, when I drove through farmland, I saw several snipe in those little, watercress-filled rivulets and a few species of small, camouflaged field birds as well.  Those birds, including a couple of killdeer plovers, several American pipits and a few each of song sparrows and savannah sparrows were along those trickles to get invertebrates and seeds to eat, which they couldn't get because of the snow on the ground.  These birds, too, are easily overlooked because they are small and mostly brown which camouflages them. 
     The little flocks of pipits, which are here for the winter from their Arctic tundra breeding grounds, were the most interesting of the small birds along seepages and trickles.  They not only walked along the muddy, snow-free shores of the waters, but were light-in-weight enough to actually walk on top of the watercress in their constant search for invertebrates, something I had never seen them do before.  They pumped their tails up and down as they walked, as pipits do, perhaps to mimic the action of small debris bobbing in the water along shorelines, which is a form of blending in.
     It seemed that all those farmland birds had adapted well to the snow on the ground.  And they were interesting for me to experience that day.    

Fiddler Crabs

     Fiddler crabs are cute little coastal creatures with an interesting courtship, though they are overlooked by most people because they are small, secretive and camouflaged.  Most species of fiddlers are about one and a half inches across at maturity.  And like all crabs, fiddlers have ten legs, the front two of which are modified into claws or pincers.  They use the other eight legs to walk sideways in search of food and mates.  Their exoskeletons, or shells, are hard, but they periodically shed their shells so they can grow.  The soft shell under the hard one becomes stiffer within several days after the older one is shed.  But fiddlers hide until those new shells do become hard.  Also, if a leg or pincer was lost in the old shell, that leg or pincer will be part of the new one. 
     There are several species of them, each of which survives about two years at most and lives in burrows the crabs dig themselves in the mud of salt marshes and mud beaches and the sand of sandy beaches on the shores of West Africa, the western Atlantic Ocean and the eastern Pacific Ocean.  I have seen colonies of fiddlers around their burrows at several far-flung places, including along the Delaware River at Delaware City, Delaware, on mud flats at Stone Harbor, New Jersey and sandy places along the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina.     
          Males of each kind of fiddler have a front claw that is as big as the rest of its body and certainly much larger than its other pincer, which is used to gather food in the mud or sand the crabs live in.  The rapid action of the small claw moving from the mud or sand to the crab's mouth looks like it is rubbing against the much larger pincer, hence looking like the action of fiddling, which gives the fiddlers their common name. 
     Each male fiddler waves his large claw to attract the attention of females so they will see him and mate with him.  Males also use their larger claws to intimidate or fight rival males to gain possession of nearby females for breeding.  If a male loses the bigger pincer, the smaller one grows larger and a new small one develops where the former big one was. 
     The larger claws of male fiddlers became that way over time by selection by the females.  Each female fiddler, which has two small pincers by he way, chooses a breeding partner by claw size and the way in which he waves it.  The higher the quality of the wave display, the more health and vigor is needed to do it.  Females choose males with the most vigor, which ensures they will help produce healthy offspring. 
     Each female fiddler spawns her eggs in a mass down her burrow for safety for herself and the eggs.  She carries that blob of eggs on her underside for two weeks.  Then she leaves her tunnel to release her eggs into the receding tide where the young float in the current and filter tiny edibles from the water.  Eventually each tiny crab matures and settles again on the land, digging burrows in the sand or mud for protection from predators and growing to maturity.
     Adult fiddlers have several predators that eat them when opportunities arise to do so.  A variety of gulls and herons, plus raccoons and other predatory critters eat fiddler crabs when they catch them out of their sheltering tunnels.
     Fiddler crabs are interesting little creatures.  But one usually has to look for these camouflaged denizens of mud flats and sandy beaches along ocean coastlines to experience them.  Their most outstanding feature is, of course, the males' one very large claw they use for displaying to the females and fighting other males.    

Blue Crabs

     Blue crabs are good eating, but they are far more than that.  Though they usually are difficult to see in the larger bodies of water they inhabit, these crustaceans, which are related to shrimp and lobsters, are an attractive, interesting form of life that lives in brackish to salt water along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Islands and down the South American Atlantic Coast to northern Argentina.  They are also in most of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and back waters behind barrier islands along the Atlantic Coast.  They are named for the blue legs of adult blue crabs, although mature females have red tips on their blue pincers, making them even more attractive. 
     The top shells of blue crabs reach nine inches across upon maturity and are mottled brown for camouflage on the bottoms of large waters.  Those shells have several sharp points on their edges to defend their owners from predation to some extent.  The bottom shells of blue crabs are much lighter than the top ones because their was no habitat pressure on the bottom ones to blend in to their surroundings since they aren't visible anyway. 
     Crab shells usually are hard, but crabs, like many invertebrates, have exoskeletons, meaning their hard parts are on the outside for defense.  To be able to grow, crabs, and other crustaceans, have to shed their hard shells.  But there is another, soft, shell underneath that grows and allows the growth of the crabs' bodies.  Those crabs are called soft-shelled and they hide and don't eat until their new shells are hard enough to defend their owners.  Each crab sheds its shell several times in its lifetime.   
     Each crab has ten legs, of which the back pair are paddle-like for swimming and the front pair are pincers for picking up food and defense.  Crabs use their other legs for walking sideways on the bottoms of waters. 
     Blue crabs are omnivores that live on the bottoms of larger, brackish bodies of water.  They ingest mollusks, including oysters, plant material and carrion, all items they can easily get a hold of.  They even bury themselves in the mud of those bottoms during winter to protect themselves from cold and predation. 
     Unfortunately, blue crabs have declined in numbers because of over-harvesting and habitat loss.  But they are making a comeback in many parts of their natural range, and they have been introduced to other parts of the world, including in the Mediterranean and around Japan, for example.
     Blue crabs have a rather complex reproductive system.  Males live in fresher water while females live in saltier water, which means there is less competition for food between the genders, meaning more of them could survive with a greater amount of food for each gender.  Blue crabs spawn in the high-salt  areas of their habitats.  Each female spawns once in her lifetime, spawning up to two million tiny eggs in a mass that is attached to her abdomen for the eggs' protection. 
     Baby blue crabs grow in several stages after hatching and leaving their mothers' abdomens.  The first is zoeae, which are tiny, float on the surface of the ocean and feed by filtering tiny edibles from the water.  Megalops is the next stage, which swims freely near the bottom.  Finally, each individual is crab-like in shape as it gets older and bigger.  And these crabs seek brackish water rather than salt water as they mature. 
     But blue crabs are preyed on by many kinds of predators in each stage of their lives, which means very few mature and reproduce.  Adult crabs, the ones we are most likely to experience, are eaten by large fish, sea turtles, certain kinds of diving ducks, raccoons, a variety of herons and many other kinds of predators. 
     Blue crabs are beautiful, intriguing critters that deserve protection from overharvesting and habitat loss.  They can be taken for human food, but only in a way that they won't be in danger of extinction.
When along the seacoast or an estuary, look for these lovely crabs.        

Birds in a Winter Woodlot

     There is a bottomland, deciduous woodlot with a stream flowing through just a mile south of New Holland, Pennsylvania.  In winter it seems barren of bird life at first glance, but it isn't.  I spent an hour at a time, four times along a country road on the edge of that woods in January and saw several kinds of wintering birds in it. 
     The usual small, woodland birds were there, including Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers and blue jays.  All those birds of each species was attractive in its own way and all but the jays were camouflaged in the gray of winter woods.  The chickadees and titmice were in a small, mixed group of both kinds roaming among the trees seeking dormant invertebrates and their eggs in bark crevices and under scales of leaf buds.
     Woodpeckers chipped and pecked here and there on dead wood after invertebrates nestled in the wood.  Their sharp toe nails and stiff tail feathers held the birds upright on the tree bark as they foraged for food.   
     The nuthatch I saw walked down a tree trunk head first as it peered into cracks in the bark for invertebrates and their eggs.  All species of nuthatches are the only birds on Earth that can walk head first down upright tree trunks and limbs.
     Several types of seed-eating birds of the sparrow/finch family also wintered in that woodlot.  They included permanent resident northern cardinals, song sparrows, American goldfinches and house finches, and wintering dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows, each species of which are quite beautiful.  These birds, but not all at once, were on the ground and weeds along the woods edge eating weed seeds.  Most of them, however, flew up into the shrubbery when an occasional vehicle went by. 
     A couple local members of the thrush family, American robins and eastern bluebirds, were also along the edge of this woodlot, one time each and not at the same time.  The robins were in a small, bordering pasture on a warm afternoon looking for invertebrates and anything else edible to them. They flew into the woods when traffic went by, but soon went back to the meadow to forage.
     The bluebirds were there to consume berries on multiflora rose bushes and poison ivy vines along the edge of the woods.  These birds paid no attention to the occasional passing vehicle.
     One afternoon, for a few minutes, I saw a red-tailed hawk circling the woodlot in search of gray squirrels that abound there.  And on another day, late in the afternoon, I heard the loud hooting of a mated pair of great horned owls that perched somewhere back in the woods.  What a thrilling wild sound that hooting was.
     But the highlights of this patch of woods I saw late one morning.  I noticed a slight motion along the stream, and looking at that spot with my 16 power binoculars, I was excited to see a hermit thrush picking up and eating invertebrates along the water's stony shore.  What a lovely and petite bird; warm-brown on top and white underneath with a dark-spotted chest.  The thrush ran about on its long, slender legs, stopping here and there to pick up an invertebrate, and sometimes pumping its rusty tail up and down slowly, as all members of its species do, perhaps as a communication.
     While watching the lovely thrush with my field glasses, a winter wren suddenly came into view.  Winter wrens are famous for wintering along streams in woods so I should not have been surprised to see it.  The wren was tiny, like a feathered mouse, warm-brown all over and constantly kept its short tail pointing upward.  It constantly hopped right along the stream, supposedly catching and ingesting tiny invertebrates still active because of the running, warming water.
     That little woodlot was rich with a variety of wintering birds.  Readers only have to get out to various habitats to see communities of wildlife as interesting as this one.       
        

Thrushes Wintering in Lancaster County

     Three kinds of birds in the thrush family regularly winter in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, including American robins, eastern bluebirds and hermit thrushes.  Many individuals of each species migrate farther south for the winter, but some stay north.  The robins in winter frequent older suburban areas and woodland edges, the bluebirds are mostly in overgrown fields and meadows, and woodland edges, and the hermits winter in woods and their borders with open areas.
These wintering thrushes feed on berries, and invertebrates when those little critters are available during warmer periods of winter.  And all these species are handsome, each in its own way.
       American robins are the best known of these thrushes because they nest and winter on our lawns.  They are gray-brown on top and rufous below and in summer they run and stop, run and stop on lawns in their search for earthworms and other types of invertebrates. 
     Male robins sing lusty songs, particularly at dawn and in the evening in spring and summer, from tree tops while females build nurseries of mud and fine grass in young trees and bushes.  Each female robin lays four deep-blue eggs in a clutch early in April and that first brood fledges about the middle of May.  Young robins have short tails and spotted breasts when they leave their cradles, showing their relatedness to thrushes. Some eggs and young, however, are preyed on by crows and blue jays.  Each pair of robins attempts to produce two broods of young per summer, which makes up for losses.
      Late in summer, robins form groups in suburbs and hedgerows before either going south for the winter or finding berries locally to eat through the winter.  During winter days they eat berries, but spend winter nights tucked away in the sheltering embraces of needled coniferous boughs.
     Male bluebirds are very attractive, being sky-blue on top and having rufous chests and white bellies.  Females are gray on top, with blue in their wings and tails, and rufous and white underneath.  Males sing gentle warbles that touch the souls of many people.  Each pair of bluebirds hatches about four young in a tree cavity in an overgrown meadow or hedgerow, or a bird box erected just for them.  Each pair tries to rear two or three broods per summer.  But bluebirds have much competition for those nesting hollows, including tree swallows, house sparrows, house wrens, and black rat snakes that will also eat the eggs or young.  Young bluebirds also have spotted chests, which shows their being a member of the thrush family. 
     Late in summer, bluebirds gather into little groups to either drift south in October or stay north and feed on berries in hedgerows.  Each winter night, several bluebirds pack into a tree hollow or bird house to share body heat.
     Hermit thrushes winter only as individuals, never in groups.  And being secretive forest birds, they are the least noticed of wintering thrushes in this area.  But they are attractive in their camouflaged way.  They are warm-brown on top to blend into the color of the leaf cover on forest floors.  And these petite thrushes have spotted chests, long legs for a thrush, and a bit of brownish-orange on their tails that they regularly pump up and down, perhaps as a communication to other hermits. 
     Male hermits sing lovely, ethereal songs in deep forests on mountain slopes, such as in the Pocono and Catskill Mountains, as elsewhere.  When I hear a hermit sing in a quiet forest, I think that woodland's existence has been justified just because of that one bird.
     American robins, eastern bluebirds and hermit thrushes are a part of Lancaster County in winter.  But one often must go out to look for them to appreciate their existence in this county in winter.    
       

Beauties of Shagbark Hickories and American Beeches

     Shagbark hickory and American beech are beautiful and interesting species of trees native to the eastern part of the United States.  Their gray bark is their greatest beauty and intrigue, in a polarized way.  The bark of the hickories is in long, partly-loose strips that look like they could easily peel off at both ends, making the trees look shaggy, hence their common name.  But the bark of beeches is tight, and smooth as paper, just the opposite of the hickories. 
     Winter is the best time to see the bark of these deciduous trees, when they are bare of foliage.  The hickories usually grow in the damp soil of forested bottomlands, while beeches flourish up slopes a little from the bottomland.  One can easily identify each kind of tree in winter by its distinctive bark, but beeches also keep many of their dead, curled, beige leaves clinging to their twigs through winter.  One can also notice how many beeches are in a woodland by that foliage on the trees in winter.  And beech trees have long, thin, amber buds that distinguish them in winter. 
     Both these trees can get massive.  Both have hard wood that is commercially valuable for flooring, baseball bats and other products requiring tough wood.  And these trees produce nuts that are eaten by squirrels, chipmunks, mice and other rodents.  Though the four-parted, thick husks and hard nuts of hickories are too hard for animals except rodents to chew into, many other kinds of wild creatures, including white-tailed deer, black bears, red foxes, gray foxes, ruffed grouse, wild turkeys and crows, consume beech nuts.  
     Both these types of trees have yellow foliage in October, adding to the beauty of that autumn month.  With the shorter periods of daylight each succeeding day and cooler average temperatures, deciduous trees, including these two, shut off water to their leaves, allowing them to die since they will have no use to the trees in winter.  As the leaves die, their green chlorophyll fades, revealing the yellow hue that was in the leaves all summer, but was overshadowed by the chlorophyll.
     Eventually, the yellow leaves of these trees fall off their twig moorings and plop onto the ground and the thick pile of fallen foliage on the soil.  There those leaves, along with the fallen leaves of other kinds of deciduous trees, shelter insects, land snails and other kinds of invertebrates and small vertebrates such as several kinds of salamanders, plus wood frogs, box turtles and white-footed mice.  And there that dead foliage rots into the soil, becoming part of it, which will nourish future plants.  Dead or alive, tree parts are valuable to the environment.   
     Hickories have compound leaves with five leaflets, but beeches have simple ones, with prominent "teeth" on their edges.  I don't know what advantage having simple or compound foliage has for the trees.  Perhaps it is nature working in different ways to determine what works better in the long run.  At any rate, leaves of the various kinds of trees help in identifying each species.
     Cavities form in the trunks and limbs of both these trees where strong wind ripped branches and twigs from the trees.  Squirrels, raccoons, certain owls, a variety of small, woodland birds, black snakes, honey bees and other kinds of wild life find shelter in those tree hollows from predation and the weather.  And some species raise young in them.
     Shagbark hickories and American beeches have several beauties and values.  But the bark on each of these deciduous trees is the most unique part of them.          

Mid-Winter Flocks

     Several species of birds in southeastern Pennsylvania form flocks in mid-winter.  These birds are adaptable, common and obvious here in winter.  They create gatherings of themselves for safety in numbers.  They are almost everywhere in the human-made habitats they are adapted to.  And most of these species overlap each other. 
     House sparrows, starlings and rock doves form flocks in urban, suburban and farmland habitats.  These kinds of birds are originally from Europe, but were introduced to the United States by people.  The house sparrows stay close to buildings, including farm yards where they eat stored grain.  These little, brown birds, which are really weaver finches, also feed in fields near buildings and at bird feeders in cities and suburbs.
     Starlings create large gatherings that roam across all built habitats to eat anything they find that is edible and they can handle.  Late in winter afternoons, their great flocks sweep across the sky, each bird twisting and turning in perfect unison with its fellows, which causes ever-changing shapes of their groups in the sky.  Finally, those large congregations of starlings swing closer and closer to the stands of coniferous trees they intend to spend the night in, and with each pass, many of them drop into the trees until all the birds are settled into the sheltering embrace of those needled boughs.
     Pigeons live on city buildings, and on large road signs, under bridges and in barns in farmland.  They also habitually perch on tops of silos through much of each day.  And their groups fly to fields to feed on grains and weed seeds through the year.  They eat grain from barnyards when snow covers that food in the fields.        
     Groups of American robins winter in certain suburban areas where they feast on berries of various kinds and roost overnight in coniferous trees.  Many people thrill to see robins feeding on the colorful berries of hawthorns, pyracanthas, hollies and other kinds of berry-bearing plants during winter.
     Little gatherings of white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos winter in older suburbs and woodland edges along fields.  In the suburbs both species feed on grains in bird feeders.  And there the white-throats settle for winter nights in shrubbery, while juncos snuggle into the sheltering boughs of conifers.  Both these species of birds eat the seeds of weeds and grasses in woodland edges and shelter in thickets in that same habitat on the borders of fields.
     Great congregations of horned larks live in cultivated fields through winter, and some of them nest there in spring.  The fields larks inhabit in winter are harvested to the ground, providing little shelter for these hardy, little birds.  But the brown larks are camouflaged in the fields and at night they snuggle down tight among clods of soil and tufts of vegetation that remain in the fields.  There they are able to avoid the worst of the cold, winter winds.  During the day, they feed on weed and grass seeds and bits of corn kernels on the ground.  Larks also pick through manure spread on top of the snow that buried seeds and grain on the soil.  They ingest chewed, but undigested, bits of corn in the manure until the snow melts away.
     Mallard ducks and Canada geese form flocks to pass the winter.  These related water birds rest on bodies of water, or ice, but fly twice daily to fields to consume bits of corn kernels in the fields.  They, too, shovel through manure for bits of corn when snow covers the fields.
     Canada geese groups are delightfully noisy when going to fields to feed or water to rest.  Many of them honk loudly along the way, indicating their presence and exciting the emotions of many outdoors people.
     American crows, down from their nesting territories in Canadian forests, are another kind of bird that forms great, often noisy, flocks in our fields through winter.  Mornings they leave roosts of thousands of crows and fly out to fields, suburbs and shopping malls in all directions, where they ingest waste corn, dead farm animals and other discarded edibles, road kills and anything else they can handle.  But by mid-afternoon, boisterous trickles, streams and rivers of crows head back to their overnight roosting places.  There they are restless for awhile, flying in and out of trees with much uproar, before finally settling for the night.
     Ring-billed gulls, here from their breeding areas along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, rest overnight on the water of rivers and large, built impoundments, or their ice.  During each winter day they feed on grains and invertebrates in fields and thrown-away edibles on the parking lots of malls.  While there, these gulls bring a bit of the look of the seacoast, bays and rivers inland.  As with crows, the gulls leave their overnight roosts in lines and groups, but quietly for the most part.  And like crows, by mid-afternoon they return to their watery or icy resting places for the night, again silently.    
     Look for these adaptable, obvious flock birds in human-made habitats this winter or succeeding ones.  They help liven many a winter day with their presences in those built environments.         

Diamondback Terrapins

     Diamondback terrapins are the only turtles that live in the salt water and brackish water in the salt marshes of estuaries, including Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, tidal flats and back waters behind barrier islands along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, from New England south.  Sometimes a few sea turtles are in those habitats, too, but not regularly like the terrapins.  Diamondbacks are a unique kind of turtle in a specific niche used only by them.
     Diamondbacks are attractive in their own, plain way.  Adult males have top shells up to five inches long, while those of mature females can be 8 inches in length.  Their top shells are gray and keeled, and each section appears to be sculptured, hence their common name.  The heads and necks of both genders are pale gray, patterned with black markings.  Their eyes are black and prominent and they have light-colored mouths.    
     Diamondbacks regularly bask in the sunlight on mud flats to warm themselves and clear their skins of parasites.  And they eat aquatic invertebrates that are easy for these slow-moving turtles to catch, including marine worms, clams and snails they find in the mud at the bottoms of their watery habitats.  But most terrapins seen by people are those in salt water channels that poke their heads partly out of the water to breathe air and look around. 
     Terrapins are down in numbers because of over-hunting for food markets, road kills and habitat loss.  But now they are protected by law and are making a comeback in many places along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.  But many terrapins are still being killed by vehicles on the roads and natural predation. 
     People at the Wetlands Institute near Stone Harbor, New Jersey, for one example of folks trying to help terrapins, are putting great efforts in increasing the numbers of diamondbacks in that area.  For one thing, they take intact eggs from the bodies of road-killed females and raise the hatchlings in tanks until those babies are large enough to not be so vulnerable to predation.  Then they are released into salt channels in coastal salt marshes to finish growing up, live out their lives and reproduce.
     Wetlands Institute people also cover known diamondback nests in the sandy soil of salt marshes with fastened down chicken wire to keep skunks and raccoons from digging up and eating the eggs.  Each female diamondback lays about 6 eggs on average.  The hatchlings are trapped in the wire cages when they hatch and emerge from the soil, which keeps predators, including crows, gulls and herons, away from the young.  Those babies, too, are raised in safety until big enough to be released into the wild with a minimum of predation on them.  In those ways, people are helping to increase the numbers of diamondback terrapins in those creatures' native environments.  Hopefully, the terrapins' populations will continue to increase.         
     Diamondback terrapins are pretty and interesting turtles that live in quiet channels of salt water in salt marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.  They are not easy to see, but are a thrill when spotted.  But even if the reader never sees these lovely terrapins, it's intriguing to know they exist. 

The Great Waterfowl Migration

     From a distance, they look like snow fell on one field.  When they all take flight, amid wing flapping and shrill honking, at once in their many thousands, the background of trees or buildings is completely blocked from view.  And when they settle onto the same field, or another one, they look like a large, swirling blizzard of giant snow flakes falling onto one spot.  They are snow geese wintering in the Mid-Atlantic States, as elsewhere in the United States. 
     Snow geese and tundra swans create the most spectacular natural shows we could hope to see in the Middle Atlantic States during winter and early spring.  Both species rest, feed and travel in constantly noisy flocks, the swans in their scores and the snow geese in their thousands.
     Snow geese and tundra swans are related and have much in common.  Both species of these large, web-footed birds are mostly white, though snow geese have black wing tips and a race of them are gray with white necks and heads.  Geese and swans both raise young on the Arctic tundra, but winter in various places of big water in the Lower 48, including along the eastern seaboard of the United States.  Both kinds have adapted to resting on larger bodies of water, including built impoundments, but feeding on waste corn kernels and the green shoots of winter rye in human-made fields when wintering in and migrating through the states.  And their great hordes are most dramatic when they are staging to migrate north to their tundra nesting territories.
     But snow geese and tundra swans have distinctive characteristics as well, traits we use to identify each species.  The stately swans have white plumages all over, and longer necks than do the geese.  The swans take off from water or land in family groups or in gatherings of a few score, more or less, flock after flock after flock over a period of time.  Swans utter loud, reedy calls that sound like "woo-hoo", "woo-hoo-hoo".  But the geese all take flight at once in their uproarious thousands, obliterating the background and uttering high-pitched, ear-splitting honking.  Snow geese always feed, rest and fly in one big, overwhelming mass.  There is safety in numbers.  
     From about mid-February to the second week in March, depending on the weather, northbound snow geese and tundra swans have gathered the last several years on different parts of the large, human-made impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where I live.  There they rest away from each other, because they don't seem to mix well, and twice daily fly out to harvested corn fields and green rye fields, which are in Lebanon County north of Middle Creek. 
     I think as many people as waterfowl come to Middle Creek to see that great show of geese and majestic swans during the few weeks in early spring when those birds are there.  After staging at Middle Creek, and other places nearby, the snow geese and tundra swans  continue their migration north to the Great lakes and the St. Lawrence River, where they stop again and wait for spring to catch up to their restless urges to migrate and reproduce.  Both species skip through Canada in that way, bit by bit, as the vernal season marches north, until they reach the tundra around the middle of May, already paired and ready to lay eggs and hatch young.  
     The goslings and cygnets hatch around the end of June.  They have until the beginning of October to grow up and be hardened for the flight south to the Atlantic Seaboard from New Jersey south to the Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  But because there are 24 hours of daylight each day during summer in the Arctic and plenty of plant and invertebrate foods, the young grow quickly.  Unlike their northbound migration of short flights and long rests, the southbound push of snow geese and tundra swans is made in one non-stop flight because there is nothing to stop them.  They winter along the East Coast, as well as other places in the Lower 48, feed on field vegetation and stage for the flight north early the next spring.  And so the cycle goes for both species, year after year.    
     Try to experience the great waterfowl migration this early spring, or a succeeding one.  It is the most spectacular natural show we can hope to see here in the Middle Atlantic States.         

Wintering Robins

     Many people in the Middle Atlantic States regard American robins as a harbinger of spring.  Indeed, we do see flocks of them early in March running across lawns where they hadn't been all winter.  Those robins are north-bound migrants.  But other robins inhabit maturing suburbs and hedgerows in this area all winter, feeding on berries of various kinds and sheltering at night in coniferous trees and thickets of shrubbery.  They are not signs of the vernal season, but many people are glad to see them just the same.
     Though not announcements of spring, robins wintering in this area are still thrilling to see.  They are handsome in their brownish-orange underparts and gray-brown upperparts perched among the attractive berries they consume and roosting in other trees and bushes between feeding forays.  Groups of wintering robins flutter into trees and bushes loaded with colorful berries, feed on several at a time, then zip out to a nearby perch to rest and digest.  Many seeds the robins ingest are passed intact while those birds are on roost, spreading the range of the plants from which they ate berries and digested their pulp.  Robins help insure food supplies for themselves into the future.
     Flocks of robins make several trips to the berries every day until the berries are gone.  Then they move on to another berry patch and another, eating the berries and spreading their seeds. 
     Some of the plants from which robins get berries and berry-like fruits in winter are hawthorns, barberries, pyracantha, multiflora rose, winterberry bushes, American hollies and hackberry trees. Many of those berries are red or orange, which makes them more visible to berry-eating birds.  Robins also eat the colorful fruits of crab apple trees, the berries of poison ivy vines, and the pale-blue, berry-like cones of red junipers, a kind of coniferous tree. 
     Robins have competition for berries in winter.  Some of their more formidable rivals are starlings, cedar waxwings and northern mockingbirds.  Starlings and waxwings also travel in gangs and clean out berries from a tree or bush in a hurry.  Mockingbirds work individually through winter, but they are pugnacious in defending a patch of berries they will consume themselves through winter.  Mockers literally chase other birds away from "their" berries, which to them is a do or die activity.
     Watch for the attractive American robins around sources of berries the rest of this winter.  But if flocks of robins are spotted on lawns early in March where they hadn't been all winter, chances are they are migrants, and harbingers of spring.     
          

Gopher Tortoise Influences

     Gopher tortoises are a type of land turtle that lives in longleaf pine woods that have sandy soil in Florida and along the Gulf Coast through Mississippi.  Their range also includes the southern halves of Georgia and Alabama.  Each tortoise lives on about four acres of the floor of longleaf pine woods. 
     Gopher tortoises are built for their life in their habitat.  They have a domed shell that is about ten inches long when they are mature.  They have round, thick back legs for walking and flattened, heavily-scaled front legs for digging protective burrows in the sandy soil.  Baby tortoises are yellow, but darken to the color of soil as they get older.  Those colors allow these animals to blend into their surroundings, which is a defense against predation. 
     Gopher tortoises are vegetarians, eating grasses, leaves, legumes, berries and other plant material they find on woodland floors.  Babies eat more legumes because they are rich in protein the young need for growth.
     Much like wood chucks, these tortoises are real home constructors, for themselves, and, inadvertently, other kinds of critters, in the sandy ground of the Deep South pine woods where they live.  Each tortoise home protects its owner and many other species of animals from overheating, weather, fire and predation.  Each tortoise digs a few burrows in its home territory, each hole about 40 feet deep on a downward slant.  Being cold-blooded as all reptiles are, gopher tortoises spend most of their time in those cool, protective tunnels, coming out of them occasionally to get food, find mates and lay two to seven eggs annually in the soil early in summer, often right outside the mouth of a burrow.  As with all reptiles, the heat of the sun incubate the eggs, encouraging the growth of the embryos to hatching by late summer.
     Gopher tortoise burrows are ecological hot spots.  Many kinds of animals find shelter in them, including indigo, eastern diamondback rattle and other kinds of snakes, lizards, burrowing owls, gopher frogs, toads, mice, including the Florida mouse, spiders and a large variety of other types of invertebrates.  Through studies, scientists claim the number of species that use tortoise burrows is close to 400.  None of those creatures were invited into the tunnels, and probably none of them do the turtles any good, but they use those tortoise homes just the same.  Many of these creatures would be at a loss for homes without gopher tortoises.  And like the tortoises, snakes and lizards spend much of their time in tortoise homes.  Obviously, this small, shelled reptile is big in the positive influence it has on its many neighbors in its habitat.                     
     There is a high mortality rate among young gopher tortoises.  Armadillos, striped skunks, raccoons, two kinds of foxes and other kinds of mammals dig up many of the eggs and eat them.  And of the young that do hatch, only a small percentage live to maturity.  It's good that adult tortoises live into their forties or longer so they have a chance at making up for losses.
     Though a small and, seemingly, an insignificant species, gopher tortoises are big in the positive influence they have on many of their neighbors.  Many creatures in the Deep South would be homeless without these little, harmless reptiles that dig long burrows in sandy soil for themselves.

Carolina Wrens and Carolina Chickadees

     Carolina wrens and Carolina chickadees are species of small birds that permanently inhabit bottomland woods, and have adapted to older suburban areas with their many tall trees and large bushes, including in my back lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Both species nest in my neighborhood and I see them year around.  But I am most likely to see them on an almost daily basis in mid-winter when deciduous foliage is down and these birds come to our feeders.  Both species are originally more southern in distribution, as their name implies.  However, severe winters can reduce Carolina wrens numbers here in the north.  But, hopefully, the survivors will have genetic codes that will allow their descendants to better survive northern winters. 
     Both these little birds are attractive, each in its own camouflaged way.  And, although they are not seed eaters, both kinds come to feeders, particularly in winter, to eat sunflower seeds and grain softened by the weather. 
     The wrens are warm-brown on top and a light brown below, allowing them to blend into the soil and dead wood they constantly frequent when looking for invertebrate food on, or near, the ground.  This type of bird is almost always on, or close to, the ground, the place to look for them. 
     Carolina wrens nest in sheltered places, such as wood piles, brush heaps, stone walls and hollow logs on the ground.  They also hatch young in such human-made articles as outdoor grills, under decks, in utility sheds and mail boxes, and other such places.  Male Carolinas have loud, chanting songs that we readily hear throughout the year as they establish and constantly proclaim their nesting territories for themselves and their mates.       
     In winter when snow is on the ground or the soil is frozen, these wrens can be hard pressed to find food.  But they search under thick bushes and fallen logs, in brush and rock piles, and along little seepages where the snow can't reach or melts away, allowing some invertebrates to remain active through much of winter. 
     Carolina chickadees are as gray as the bark of the twigs and trunks of the tops of the bushes and trees they perch on.  They also have black caps and bibs that add color contrast to their plumages.  I particularly like when they hop through the top limbs of our large pussy willow shrub that stands only a few feet from our upstairs bedroom window.  There these pretty and brave little birds are close-up, gray on gray, especially when the sun shines on that tall shrub and when its furry male catkins are in bloom late in February and into early March.
     Because the chickadees are in the tree or bush tops and the Carolina wrens are on the ground for the most part, these two species of birds don't compete directly for invertebrate food.  The chicks eat tiny invertebrates and their eggs from crevices in bark, buds and leaves.  Even at feeders, the wrens get food from the ground while the chicks do so at the feeders themselves off the ground. 
     Early in spring, male chickadees repeatedly sing "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" to establish and maintain nesting territories.  Chickadees hatch young in abandoned woodpecker holes and other cavities in trees.  But they have also adapted to rearing offspring in house wren or bluebird nest boxes erected  in woodland edges and maturing suburban areas.  House sparrows, eastern bluebirds, tree swallows and, especially, house wrens, are some of the competitors for nesting hollows.  House wrens are as small as the chickadees and often throw other birds' eggs out of nests so the house wrens can take over those nurseries for themselves.  But chickadees are small, which eliminates some of the slightly larger birds in rivalry for nesting cavities because they are too big to squeeze into chickadee cavities.
     Watch for these species of small birds on your lawns or in bottomland woods.  They are attractive, and interesting because they get food in different niches of their shared habitats, thus reducing competition between them for that food.           

Early Nesting Raptors

     Raptors are birds of prey, including owls, eagles and hawks, that kill and eat other kinds of animals.  Three species of raptors here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, begin their courtships early in the reproductive cycle of each year.  The three are great horned owls, bald eagles and red-tailed hawks, all of which are highly adaptable around the works of people, which is good for these large, common raptors because that adapting adds to their nesting sites, and their numbers.  Human activities have not pushed these birds away; rather these raptors have used them to their own advantage.
     Females of each kind of raptor is a little larger than her mate.  Females are larger to brood and defend their young in the nest.  Males are a bit smaller to be quicker on the hunt because, while their mates brood, they are doing most of the hunting for the whole family.  This is a division of labor that works toward the good of each raptor species.
     Great horned owls live permanently and nest in woodlands and older suburban areas with their many tall trees.  They perch high in trees, particularly coniferous ones where they are available in the suburbs, and mostly catch rodents at night in fields near their roosting and nesting sites.  Great horns stand about two feet tall, have cryptic plumages that camouflage them in the trees and a long sharp claw or talon on each toe for perching and catching and killing prey.
     Horned owls start their courtships about the end of November and through December when we hear pairs of them hooting boisterously to each other just after sunset and just before sunrise each wintry day.  Their calling to each other seems haunting to us.  Each series of hoots begins with three short notes, followed by two long ones, sounding like "hoo, hoo, hoo- hoooooo, hoooooo".  Members of each pair's calls to each other lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, after which the owls take off to hunt prey into the dark of night.
     During January, each pair of horned owls adds twigs and other vegetation to an old hawk, heron or crow nest that they usurped for themselves in the tree tops.  Generally, they take over those cradles before the original builders return to them, making pirating those nurseries easy for the owls.
     Each female owl lays one or two eggs in her nest toward the end of January and the chicks hatch by the end of February.  Obviously, in the cold weather at that time the female must brood her clutch and small young almost constantly while her mate feeds her on the nest. 
     As the chicks grow larger in March, but still need to be brooded, the male owl hunts prey for the whole family day and night.  But by the middle of April, young horned owls fledge their nests, have feathers to insulate against cold nights and can protect themselves from predators.  Now both parents hunt to feed their large offspring.  By the end of May, when there is an abundance of young prey animals and the pickings are easy, the young owls will be on their own.
     Thinking backward, great horned owls start their courting in late November so their chicks will be  independent when prey species are most abundant and vulnerable.  Through trial and error, the owls' timing of courtship works out just right.
     Several pairs of stately bald eagles annually nest in Lancaster County, some along the Susquehanna River, some along larger, human-made impoundments locally and still others in the county's farmland.  Nesting in Lancaster County farmland is a new adaptation by these magnificent birds of prey.  Pairs of this species begin their courtships during December when they are seen perching or soaring on high together.  Soon they are remodeling their large, bulky stick nests in tall trees, usually near water.  Each female lays one to three eggs in a clutch early in February and the young hatch early in March. 
     Again, as the male of each pair hunts for the whole family, his mate constantly broods the small chicks.  But when the young get older and larger and can insulate and protect themselves, both parents of each pair hunt for fish and other critters to feed their offspring.  Finally, sometime in June, the young eagles are on their own, ready to hunt and scavenge as their parents do.  Now they are as big as their parents, but are chocolate-brown all over instead of being dark with white heads and tails.
     Pairs of red-tailed hawks are seen perching and soaring together by late December and through January along woodland edges, in older suburbs with lots of tall trees and gray squirrels, and, most commonly, in local cropland, where they perch on lone trees in fields to watch for mice, rats and other prey animals.  Like horned owls, red-tails take over the treetop nests of crows, herons and other kinds of hawks early, before the rightful owners return to their handiworks.
     Each female red-tail lays about three eggs in a clutch by mid-February.  The hawk chicks hatch around the middle of March.  Again, only the male of the pair hunts and feeds the female and young babies until they are old enough to insulate and defend themselves.  Then both parents of the pair hunt for and feed the youngsters until they are independent of their parents.
     Being daytime hunters and larger than crows in size, red-tails specialize in catching and eating gray squirrels that commonly live in woods and older suburban areas.  If the reader is tired of these squirrels in your yard, tolerate the presence of red-tailed hawks.
     Horned owls, bald eagles and red-tails are raptors that have adapted well to human-made habitats here in Lancaster County, as they have elsewhere.  They are so well oriented in human environs, they are readily rearing offspring there as well, which is good for them, and us.    
                   

Bird Food in Winter Seepages and Trickles

     Clear water percolating from the ground in several of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's short-grass cow pastures creates many varied-sized, shallow seepages and running rivulets free of ice and snow.  Moving water doesn't freeze easily, and doesn't allow the accumulation of snow on it.  Those green oases of trickling water, mud, lush short-grass, water cress and algae, surrounded by snow at times in winter, draw a variety of wintering birds seeking food when their usual sources are buried under  snow and ice.  Those same birds add beauty and interest to the seeps and trickles.
     Groups of Canada geese, mallard ducks, black ducks and American wigeon ducks feed on the grass, cress ad algae in those seepages and tinkling trickles snaking darkly through the snow cover when their usual food of corn kernels and green rye shoots in the fields are buried and ponds are frozen shut.  The geese and wigeons pluck the grass with their sturdy beaks while the mallards and black ducks shovel up the soft water plants.  That division of food sources reduces competition among those related waterfowl.
     Those mixed gatherings of geese and ducks are attractive and interesting.  The large geese appear stately, while mallard drakes have iridescent green heads and black ducks do look black against the snow, though they are dark chocolate in color. 
     Other kinds of wintering birds are on those little islands of clear, ice-free water, mud and lush vegetation, bordered by a sea of snow cover, to consume invertebrates in the water and mud.  Those birds include one or two each per seepage of Wilson's snipe, which is a kind of inland sandpiper, killdeer plovers, American pipits and song sparrows.  All these little birds are brown and striped beautifully on top to allow them to blend into the background of mud and short vegetation to be safer from predation.  Most of the time they can't be seen until they move; and then one needs to know where to look to spot them.  But when noticed, one has to admire their attractive plumages. 
     Several snipe feed from these seeps and trickles in meadows all winter, whether snow is on the ground or not.  They are the most endemic bird at these seeps and trickles through each winter.  But more of them are in that niche when other shallow waters freeze.  Snipe get food  by rapidly poking their long beaks into mud under shallow water to pull out worms, snails, insect larvae and other aquatic invertebrates still active because the running water keeps them warmer.  The quick, up and down action of a snipe's bill is like that of a sewing machine needle. 
     Killdeer, pipits and song sparrows walk on the mud's surfaces and the water's edges to get invertebrate food, again kept active by the running water that laps over the mud and tiny shorelines.  Those birds might compete with each other for food, but not with the snipe. 
     Little flocks of American robins, American crows and ring-billed gulls sometimes land on larger  seepages in short-grass meadows to ingest invertebrates, but not all at once.  These birds in their numbers and sizes probably clean out much of the invertebrates in a seep or trickle, making life tougher for the snipe and other smaller bird species at the seeps.  But the robins, crows and gulls usually don't stay long at any one seepage or rivulet. 
     When snow covers the ground in Lancaster County farmland, watch for birds around seeps and trickles of snow and ice-free, clear water.  You will know that those birds are there to get food until there normal, larger food sources again become snow-free.          

Birds Wintering in a Thicket

     For over three hours in a couple of successive afternoons early in January of this year, I sat in my car in an overgrown, quarter-acre clearing in a woodland outside of New Holland, Pennsylvania.  That opening in the woods along the road, created by cutting out the large trees, looked like a good place for certain kinds of wintering birds and I stayed in the car to conceal my presence from the birds, and for warmth.  In recent winters in woods around this clearing I had seen white-tailed deer, a red fox, wild turkeys and other creatures, and heard great horned owls. 
     This particular clearing was surrounded by tall, planted Norway spruce trees on two sides and deciduous woods, with mostly white oak trees, on the other sides.  That open space was mostly choked with multiflora rose and black raspberry canes, matted-down, tall grass, and dead, but still-standing goldenrod stems.  Pokeweed stalks, several bittersweet vines and one large staghorn sumac tree flaunted purple, orange and fuzzy-red berries respectively in that open place in the woods.
     I wasn't in that clearing the first day more than a few minutes than a beautiful, male rufous-sided towhee appeared on top of a rose cane.  He was shiny-black on top, with warm-brown flanks and white belly and chest.  Within seconds another male towhee was visible, but both birds soon dove out of sight in the tangles of vegetation.  I saw them the next day, however.  Towhees eat weed seeds in winter.    
     I was thrilled to see those male towhees because I don't spot them often, especially in winter.  Most go south for the winter, and when they are in Lancaster County to raise young, they are mostly out of sight.  
     Over the course of those few hours spent in that overgrown clearing in the woods, I spotted a few other kinds of pretty, interesting and adaptable birds, most of them small ones that live in woods and thickets.  On the first day, a little band of Carolina chickadees foraged for insect eggs on plants in the clearing.  And several seed-eating birds, including a pair of northern cardinals, a couple of song sparrows, and small groups each of wintering white-throated sparrows, tree sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, ate seeds from the dead goldenrod stalks and scratched on the ground for grass seeds.
     The sumac tree with its innumerable, fuzzy red berries arranged in many pyramids was a magnet for a few kinds of berry-eating birds while I was there.  A northern mockingbird was the first bird I noticed on the sumac during the first day.  It ate a few berries then flew off.  But the sumac was more interesting on the second day.  Then two male northern flickers swept into the tree and hastily consumed some of its berries.  Striking birds, I could see their white rumps and yellow wing feathers when they flew into the tree.  And I noticed their black-speckled bellies, black "moustaches", one on each side of their face, and the red spot on the back of each of their heads.  A bit later, a pair of eastern bluebirds were in the tree to ingest some of its berries.  And still later, a small group of cedar waxwings were in it to eat its berries.  Sometimes, these birds overlapped a bit, making the sumac tree even more intriguing and lovely to view.  I estimated that sumac had enough berries to last the birds much of the winter.         
     I also saw a couple other, larger species of birds in tall white oak trees on the edge of this overgrown clearing.  One was a pileated woodpecker that powered over the clearing and thumped upright at the base of a white oak where it chipped into the bark and dead  wood after invertebrates.
The other birds were a couple of red-tailed hawks, maybe a mated pair because this is the time of their courting.  One flew over the clearing carrying a small animal that it would eat.  The other landed on a white oak at the edge of the clearing where it probably was watching for squirrels.  
     This was an interesting clearing in the winter woods, as many of them are in the Middle Atlantic States.  The diversity of shelters and food sources in one small place creates that intrigue.

Wintering Birds in Corn Stubble

     Thousands of acres of corn are grown in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to feed to cows and horses in barns during winter.  Most corn fields are harvested by late October, some of them to the ground, while others have foot-long stubble.  Flocks of wintering, open country birds, including horned larks, rock pigeons, mourning doves, American crows, mallard ducks and Canada geese, eat much of the corn kernels and bits of corn lying in the fields that were cut to the ground, making those fields more interesting.
     And a small variety of wintering, adaptable woods and thicket birds get a limited variety of food in fields of corn stubble located near woods and thickets, making those fields even more intriguing.  Those species of attractive birds, too, eat bits of corn, but also various weed and grass seeds, and invertebrates, whenever those tiny critters are active during winter.  Each kind of bird has its specific choice, or choices, of foods, reducing competition for that sustenance.
     It's always surprising to see woodpeckers in corn stubble, but three species are there if their woodland habitat is near that stubble.  Downy woodpeckers are there mostly to chip into the stubble, as they do trees, to extract insects hiding in them.  Downies prop themselves upright on the cut corn stalks with their stiff tail feathers as they chisel into that stubble.  Red-bellied woodpeckers and northern flickers are in the fields to pick up bits of corn kernels.  Those handsome birds repeatedly undulate into the fields, pick up a bit of corn and fly back to a tree of a woods to eat it.  But they wouldn't ignore an invertebrate when spotted. 
     Beautiful blue jays swoop out to corn stubble from a woodland and land on the ground.  There they quickly toss down bits of corn, seeds and invertebrates while nervously watching for danger.  After several seconds of that they are full and power back to the woods to rest and digest.
     Groups of wild turkeys and single white-breasted nuthatches from nearby woods also eat pieces of corn.  The turkeys stay in the fields until full, but the nuthatches each pick up one bit of corn at a time, fly to their nearby woods to eat it in comparative safety, then fly back for another, and another.
     Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice flit into corn stubble from nearby woodlands to ingest invertebrates and their eggs they find in the stubby stalks.  But when filled, back to their woodsy home they go.
     Several types of wintering thicket birds gather in little groups in neighboring fields of corn stubble to feed on weed and grass seeds, bits of corn and invertebrates, depending on the species.  Northern cardinals, song sparrows, house finches and dark-eyed juncos consume the seeds of various weeds and grasses, as well as tiny pieces of corn.  But on warmer winter afternoons, little companies of lovely eastern bluebirds and individual, gray northern mockingbirds perch on the corn stubble and watch for active invertebrates, particularly on the sun-warmed ground.
     Interestingly, a few fields of corn are not harvested through much of winter.  The stalks stand tall, but dead, except the kernels.  The dried, yellow leaves of the stalks flutter and rustle in the cold wind.  Those corn fields provide shelter for these same types of birds as they feed in them through winter, making those fields interesting to experience. 
     Watch corn stubble fields near woods and thickets in winter.  Some of them can be fascinating at times.  
      
       

Audible Courtships in Lancaster County Woods

     We humans in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania hear the courtships of several kinds of male animals in the woods through the year.  Each species has its time of courting every year, and there is limited overlapping, allowing us to enjoy each courtship as it occurs.
     As might be expected, there is little courting during winter.  But members of each pair of great horned owls hoot to each other as part of their courtship in the woods during December.  That loud, deep hooting frightens some people.  And in January, pairs of red foxes bark hoarsely to each other, bringing a bit of the wild to those who hear the barking and know what animals are doing it.
     As the amount of daylight each succeeding day gets longer and temperatures rise during February and March, male American woodcocks start their courtship displays each dusk during those months and through April.  Each male starts his display by standing on a bare patch of soil in a clearing in or near a woodland and repeatedly utters a hiccupping sound for about a minute.  Then he takes off in spiral flight upward while his wings twitter rhythmically.  When he reaches the zenith of his climb skyward, he utters musical notes vocally that tumble to the ground, soon followed by the bird himself to that same spot of bare ground.  Then he repeats the courtship again, and again, until hunger or females willing to mate break his concentration.
     Tufted titmice and northern cardinals begin singing enthusiastically on their nesting territories during warm February afternoons.  The titmice seem to sing "Peter, Peter, Peter" while the cardinals loudly exclaim "cheer, cheer, what cheer".
     Wood frogs are awakened from hibernation in leaf piles on forest floors by warm, spring rain and melting snow early in March.  They hop across soggy leaf carpets on woodland floors to vernal ponds where hundreds of males croak hoarsely, particularly on rainy nights, to invite females of their kind into the water to spawn.  For a few days the wood frogs spawn thousands of eggs, then leave the pools to live in the leafy carpets and hunt invertebrates through spring and summer.    
     By  the end of March or early in April, thousands of male spring peepers and American toads congregate in wetlands and the shallows of ponds to peep and trill respectively, creating a din that can be heard by us for some little distance.  The peepers and toads are most active calling during rains and at night.  Females of these amphibian species hear the peeping and trilling and join the males in the water to spawn.  And some people go out of their way to hear the beautiful, vernal music of these amphibians.
     Ruffed grouse and wild turkeys begin courting in local woodlands in April.  Male grouse hop onto fallen logs in the woods and beat their wings together in front of themselves, making series of muffled booming sounds from the air being forced from between the wings.  We feel those thumps more than hear them.  Female grouse go to the males of their choice to mate with them.
     Tom turkeys gobble loudly to announce their presence and to invite hen turkeys to mate with them.  We can hear that wild gobbling for some distance through the woods.     
     Every evening from late in April through May and June, male whip-poor-wills loudly chant their name when the last daylight is drained from the woods.  This, too, is a wild sound and we hear these birds more often than we see them. 
     And from late in April through May, June and into July, several kinds of small birds that winter in Central and South America are singing in our woods to establish nesting territories.  Some of those neotropical birds are Wood thrushes, red-eyed vireos, ovenbirds and scarlet tanagers.  Their songs, particularly those of the thrushes are beautiful to hear. 
     By the end of July, through August, September and into October, male true katydids stridulate from the tree tops in the woods to attract mates to them for breeding.  Each male uses a file and scraper on his wings to make that mechanical sound that seems to say Katydid.  At dusk and into the night the katydids call mechanically, night after night, until a heavy frost finally kills them sometime in October.  Then the woods are quiet again until the horned owls begin hooting to each other by the end of November. 
     When in local woodlands, listen for these audible examples of courting.  They certainly liven a woods and make it more interesting.