The latter part of February and the beginning of March is a favorite and exciting time of the year for me here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. That is when there is an annual surge of bird migrations, bird songs, the blooming of early, hardy plants and other happenings in early spring. But because of unseasonably cold weather through all of February and the first week in March in 2015, early spring nature events were delayed a few weeks.
But the weather in Lancaster County finally warmed on March 7 and stayed warm for that time of the year until at least March 13th, the time of this writing. Migrant birds suddenly burst forth and poured into this area from March 10 through at least the 13th, like water from a newly-broken dam, creating living floods that arrived here, literally, overnight.
Spring didn't suddenly appear without warning, however. Daylight each succeeding evening had been getting noticeably longer since mid-January. And the sun continually got "higher" and hotter in the sky each day.
Spring floods made Lancaster County interesting from March 10 through the 13th in 2015. First was the flooding of water on fields and meadows and across roads from melting snow and rain that fell on March 10. Then floods of a few kinds of migrant birds, sensing the increased amount of daylight each day and the warming temperatures, suddenly poured into this area, starting on March 10, causing excitement among birders and non-birders alike. Those birds, as during every early spring in Lancaster County, but usually during the third week in February, are snow geese, tundra swans, ring-billed gulls, mixed flocks of purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds, and American robins. All those species stay in this county for a couple of weeks, or more, depending on the weather, before continuing their migrations, or spreading out and settling into local nesting areas, depending on the species. And all these adaptable species make use of human-made fields, impoundments and lawns, which benefits them and us.
Twice a day migrant snow geese and tundra swans join resident Canada geese on fields where they all feed on waste corn kernels from last autumn's harvests and the green blades of winter rye. When full, flocks of snows, Canadas and swans fly noisily to human-made impoundments to rest, digest, preen their feathers and socialize until hungry again.
Snow geese usually travel in great, clamorous hordes that resemble waves sliding across the sky like water up a beach, or a blizzard of giant snow flakes dropping to a field or a lake. Some snow goose blizzards are so large and thick with birds that the background is completely blocked from view. Sometimes those geese are so numerous on a field that, from a distance, it looks like snow fell only on that one field.
Tundra swans also travel about in flocks, but ones not nearly as numerous with birds as the snows. The swans move from place to place in V's or long lines of scores of birds, many of which are calling "woo" or "woo-hoo" at once. The swans have white feathering all over, while the snow geese are smaller than the swans, and have white plumages, but with black wing tips. Some snow geese have dusky bodies with white necks and heads. They are the same species as the white snow geese, but are called blue geese.
In March, April and May, snow geese and tundra swans hop, skip and jump north through Canada and arrive on the Arctic tundra to nest by mid-May. After a couple of weeks in Lancaster County I get weary of their presence. Their large hordes that can be seen, or heard, most anywhere at anytime, day or night, get hard on my nerves. But they were spectacular on migration, creating inspiring, natural shows, including when resting and feeding, and particularly when flying from place to place here in Lancaster County.
Much smaller groups of mallards, black ducks, pintail ducks, American wigeons and green-winged teal join the geese and swans in the fields and on the lakes and ponds. Most of these duck species feed on waste corn kernels, but wigeons mostly eat rye shoots like the geese and swans.
Ring-billed gulls are in Lancaster County all winter, feeding on anything edible in landfills, fields and parking lots. But in March their numbers are greatly bolstered by ring-bills pushing north from farther south and along the seacoast. Many of those migrant gulls, in flocks, along with the wintering ones, drop to fields being plowed to eat invertebrates from the freshly turned furrows. The gulls form entertaining turning wheels as they drop into the furrows ahead of their fellows and right behind the plows. Ring-bills mostly raise young around the Great lakes and the St. Lawrence River.
Mixed, large flocks of purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds pour into this county by the many thousands and spread over fields and lawns to eat invertebrates, corn and other edibles. The grackles have a purple and green sheen to their black feathers while the male red-wings are black with red shoulder patches. When hordes of these two blackbird species arise at once, they block out the background as effectively as snow geese do.
Many of the migrant grackles and red-wings in this county stay here to nest. Soon their great multitudes break into small groups to begin nest building, the grackles among half-grown, planted coniferous trees on lawns and the red-wings in farmland cattail marshes.
Many American robins winter in Lancaster County, but early in March the numbers of those wintering robins is greatly bolstered by incoming migrants. Scores, even hundreds, of migrating robins spread over lawns and fields to eat earthworms and other invertebrates. But like blackbirds, robins soon disperse from their migrant gatherings to build nurseries in small trees and bushes on lawns and in hedgerows between fields. By the end of March, male robins are in full song at dawn and dusk and females are making cradles of mud and grass by the middle of April in this area. Watch for these migrant birds in their great flocks the rest of this spring and succeeding ones. The migrations of those innumerable birds make this time of the year exciting, which is one of my favorites.
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