March Migrant Birds in a Partly-flooded Meadow

     I've noted ducks and other kinds of migrant birds in a partly-flooded meadow along the sycamore tree-lined Cocalico Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania every March in the last few years.  Shallow pools of varying sizes form in that lowland meadow along the Cocalico because of a combination of melting snow and rainfall. 
     On March 16, 2015, however, I took special notice of that puddled pasture to spot whatever migrating birds stop there to rest and feed.  There were several, including 63 black ducks that dominated the shallow pools of that meadow with their numbers and dark feathering: They really stood out.  From a distance, they do look black.  There were also about a dozen Canada geese there, plus several pairs of American wigeon ducks, three pairs of pintail ducks and a few pairs of mallard ducks, much the same species that gathered there in previous years.  Maybe they were the same birds.  The geese and the different kinds of ducks in that flooded meadow rest on water, and feed on vegetation in shallow water and in pastures and fields, and on corn kernels in corn fields that were harvested last fall.  The geese and mallards may be local residents that will stay in this area to raise young, but the other kinds of ducks in that meadow will migrate farther west or north to rear offspring.       
     Interestingly, I saw a pair of wood ducks and a small group of male and female common mergansers on the Cocalico by the pasture I was watching.  The woodies probably will stay in that area to hatch young in a hollow in one of the larger sycamore trees.  And the hen and her ducklings will feed on vegetation and invertebrates respectively along the Cocalico through the summer.
     The mergansers, however, will soon move on to their breeding grounds farther north and west.  They were only passing through this area to their nesting territories, stopping here and there to catch small fish, which is their almost exclusive food. 
     And interestingly enough, a large, noisy flock of purple grackles landed in the trees along the Cocalico and then settled on the soggy ground of the pasture.  There they searched for any kind of invertebrates they could grab and swallow. 
     And there was a smaller gathering of American robins running and stopping, running and stopping over the same meadow in their own quest for earthworms and other types of invertebrates.  The grackles and robins, too, were migrants for the most part, although some of them may nest locally.
     This was one of many partly flooded meadows and fields where migrant geese, ducks, grackles, robins and ring-billed gulls feed on vegetation and invertebrates, depending upon the species, before continuing the next lap of their journeys north or northwest during spring.  These beautiful and interesting birds have adapted to those open, human-made habitats to get food, which increases their overall food supply, and makes those places more intriguing to us early in spring.  Seeing migrant birds in situations like that partly inundated pasture helps make our lives more enjoyable and inspiring.