A Day of Flocks

     One late morning in mid-March a couple of years ago as I drove through farmland around my home in New Holland, Pennsylvania to see what was happening in nature, I saw flocks of different kinds of migrating birds.  Though regularly spotted migrants in this area in spring, they were still exciting to see, especially because there were so many different kinds of birds in one day.  But that's what happens here at that time of year.
     I stopped briefly at an abandoned quarry filled with water where twenty elegant tundra swans and 32 American wigeon ducks rested on the water.  Both these species of waterfowl eat waste corn kernels and the green shoots of winter rye in nearby fields, creating inspiring spectacles in flight between the water and fields.  But soon they will migrate farther north and west to their breeding territories.
     Moving on, I came upon a large, mixed congregation of blackbirds in a harvested cornfield.  Purple grackles, red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds and starlings ate waste corn, seeds, invertebrates and everything else they deem edible.  That gathering of blackbirds moved around a lot, like a dark river, and was soon gone from view. 
     Every early-spring, many thousands, hordes, of migrant blackbirds, in the mixed flocks mentioned above, pour like a flood into Lancaster County.  Though only four species are in each mixed group of blackbirds, it looks like there are six kinds because male red-winged blackbirds are black with red shoulder patches, but female red-wings are brown, streaked with black.  Those scarlet epaulets on male red-wings in flight flash like hot coals in a black furnace.  Male cowbirds have black body plumage, but that of their mates is dull-gray.  Both genders of grackles have a purple sheen on their black feathers and yellow irises.     
     But soon those great gatherings of blackbirds will break up into individual pairs focused on reproduction in different nesting habitats in the local area.  Red-wings will hatch young in cattail marshes and hay fields, while grackles will rear offspring in groves of coniferous trees on lawns.
     I also came upon a few flocks of American robins on lawns and fields in the farmland around New Holland.  As is their way, those robins ran and stopped, an and stopped as they looked and listened for invertebrates at the grass roots level.  Occasionally, I would see a robin wrestling with an earthworm.
     I also saw a gathering of hundreds of ring-billed gulls in a plowed field where they were searching for earthworms and other invertebrates to eat.  Those gulls were a bit of the seacoast come inland to bare ground that must remind them of the beaches and mud flats they are adapted to.  These gulls are adaptable to the point of making a living, not only in those seacoast habitats, but in bare, winter croplands as well.     
     Back in New Holland, I saw several skeins of snow geese moving swiftly across the sky like waves sliding up a beach.  As always, the snows honked loudly and excitedly, which, in turn, stirs the emotions of outdoor people.  Those snows, at that moment, were either continuing their migration north, or going to or from nearby feeding fields.  But like the swans, wigeons and gulls, these snow geese will soon migrate out of this area to their nesting grounds.  The snows, like the swans, will rear young on the Arctic tundra of Canada and Alaska.
     Anyone can see migrating birds anywhere in the world.  One has only to get out at the right times in spring and autumn to experience migration spectacles.