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.