By the middle of October and through November, stately Canada geese and several kinds of ducks are common on impoundments and fields in inland Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Mallard ducks, wood ducks and Canadas nested here and remained into fall, though most of the woodies flew south by October. Many of the mallards and Canadas are permanent residents here and won't leave until forced to by a severe winter. And other kinds of ducks and brant geese come here from their nesting territories farther north or west. Some of them will also stay until lakes and ponds freeze over and fields are covered by snow, locking away their food supplies.
All these geese and ducks are adaptable, even in highly civilized areas, which allows them to use built habitats, including impoundments and fields. Instead of being driven away by our activities as a society, these water birds put them to use for their own benefit.
Resident Canada geese form large flocks of themselves on most every human-made lake, pond, flooded quarry, retention basin and flooded field in this county at one time or another. There they rest and honk almost constantly, but when hungry, off they go in inspiring, bugling groups, flock after flock, to harvested corn fields and winter rye fields, also human-made habitats, where they eat waste corn kernels and the green shoots of rye. Their hordes noisily circle the field they intend to land on several times, then finally come down, group after group, as if on an aerial highway, to the ground. The majestic Canadas are always thrilling and inspiring to see and hear, in the air, on the fields and on water. And they are especially exciting when they take off from or come down on water or fields amid their boisterous honking.
In October and November, a few small gatherings of migrating brant geese stop to rest on the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, or on a couple of its winter rye fields to graze on the green rye stems. These are small, attractive geese, barely larger than mallard ducks, that are related to Canada geese. They nested on the tundra along the Arctic Ocean and are now going to salt marshes along the Atlantic shore for the winter.
Mallard ducks are the most common duck species in Lancaster County any time of year. Most every pond, retention basin, wetland, flooded field and creek has its groups of pretty mallards. Drakes have dark-rufous chests and totally green heads.
Mallards dabble for aquatic vegetation in the shallow water and fly out to harvested corn fields to shovel up waste corn kernels. I have seen flocks of them powering out on whistling wings to feeding fields during winter sunsets when wind pushed snow over those fields like pink smoke. The ducks descended into and disappeared in the drifting snow in the gathering darkness and continued to feed on corn among the snow drifts until darkness enveloped them. What a wild sight for such a common creature in overly-civilized Lancaster County.
And there are little gatherings and individuals of other duck species in this area in autumn, including dabbling ducks and diving ducks. Dabblers here in November include black ducks, green-winged teal, shovelers, gadwalls, northern pintails and American wigeons. Diving ducks on inland lakes include a few each of ring-necked ducks, lesser scaup, ruddy ducks, buffleheads and hooded mergansers.
Black ducks nest in woodland habitats in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. And, although many of them spend winters on Atlantic Coast salt marshes, some of them winter on creeks, ponds and lakes in Lancaster County and other inland locations. Black ducks are closely related to mallards and a few blacks join mallards on water and in feeding fields.
The other dabblers are in Lancaster County mostly as pairs or individuals, usually in groups of mallards. The exception is a flock of about 30 shovelers on the impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in November. These ducks, as a group, are interesting to watch feeding in their own, unique way on small vegetable and animal matter in very shallow water. A group of shovelers will form a circle in the shallows and swim round and round to stir up the mud on the bottom with their webbed feet. Then they strain the mud with their over-sized beaks to consume the edibles in it. I presume they have fed in this way from the origin of their species. Their large, spatula-like bills developed later through genetic quirks to more efficiently feed in the way they do.
I like to watch the diving ducks slip under water from the surface to get either vegetable or small animal foods in the water, depending on the species. Hooded mergansers catch small fish, while the other kinds consume a combination of water plants and small animals, including insect larvae, and small mollusks and crustaceans, including crayfish of various sizes.
This autumn and winter, watch for these inland types of geese and ducks in the Middle Atlantic States, and elsewhere. They are another interesting part of nature in this developed area.
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