European Life in Lancaster County

     For about an hour during a hot afternoon a few days ago I drove through farmland around New Holland, Pennsylvania to see what wildlife was visible and what they were doing.  I didn't see anything new or particularly exciting, but I did see adaptable wildlife originally from Europe going about their daily business.
     As I drove by a pasture and feedlot with several young, holstein cows in it, I noticed over a hundred house sparrows perched on a large patch of foxtail grass near the road.  I stopped to get better looks of those scores of sparrows feeding on the seeds of that tall grass that is also originally from Europe.  The grass grew wild and is now a tremendous food source to seed-eating, small birds through fall and winter.
     While still parked at the foxtail grass patch, I took closer notice of the cattle feedlot.  About a dozen European starlings where helping themselves to the food in the feed troughs, one of the reasons starlings are so abundant the year round here. 
     Driving on, I came to a loose gathering of colorful bantam chickens right along another country road.  There were small groups, here and there, of hens and roosters, families of half-grown chicks already on their own, and a couple broods of small peeps with their mothers.  All those small, attractive chickens were feeding on grasshoppers, crickets, weed seeds and waste grain as I drove by slowly.  A few of the bantams crossed the road in front of my car, but I was able to avoid them.
     All breeds of domestic chickens, including bantams, are descended from the red jungle fowl of southeast Asia.  Some farmers here in Lancaster County let chickens run free, including bantams.  It's interesting to see how those free-roaming chickens behave when feeding and socializing across fields and lawns.
     I saw several cabbage white and yellow sulphur butterflies puddling in mud along the edge of the Conestoga River, which might seem an unusual behavior for butterflies.  Butterflies use their straw-like mouths to get salt and minerals from the mud, nutrition they don't get from flower nectar or pollen.
     Those same kinds of butterflies, and a couple other species, also visited the hot-pink blossoms of a few nearby purple loosestrife plants along the shore of the Conestoga.  They were there, of course, to sip nectar from the blooms of those bushy, Old-World plants that can be invasive.   
     Both those common kinds of butterflies are abundant in this area, adding much life to hay fields.  Those butterflies, too, are from Europe, but I don't know how they got to America.
     As I continued to drive along, I passed red clover and alfalfa hay fields that had not been mowed lately and were full of flowers.  The clover had pink blooms while the alfalfa had purple ones with a sweet fragrance.  Clover and alfalfa are also originally from the Old Country.  Swarms of cabbage whites and yellow sulphurs, plus a few native monarch butterflies and worker bumble bees, were all over those flowers to get nectar and pollen, fertilizing the blossoms in the process.  Those insects really were a sight to see.
     Continuing to drive along, I also saw some hay fields that had recently been cut.  A large flock of over a hundred rock pigeons, and several of their relatives, the native mourning doves, were in one of those harvested hay fields to glean weed seeds from the ground.  Pigeons are from Eurasia, but were brought to America as a meat and egg bird, as well as a sporting bird.  Some pigeons escaped captivity many years ago and have been wild in America since.     
     After that encounter with the pigeons and doves, I went home.  But I was reminded of how many plants and wild animals from Europe live in this cultivated county, and over much of the United States.