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.
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