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.