Birds Expected in Winter Farmland

     For an hour and a half late in the morning of February 1, 2016, I drove through cropland just outside of New Holland, Pennsylvania to see wintering farmland birds.  The fields were mostly snow-covered, with some patches of exposed soil.  And the snow was slowly melting.
     A flock of horned larks was the first birds I saw that morning.  The camouflaged larks were eating seeds from a patch of bare ground in a harvested corn field.  I only saw them because a few of them were walking on the snow.
     While watching those handsome larks,  I also noticed a few each of jet-black American crows, petite mourning doves and pretty rock pigeons eating corn kernels in snow-free areas of that same field.  And while I watched those birds, a group of 18 majestic Canada geese circled that same field and gracefully parachuted down into the wind for flight control to it to feed on corn kernels, honking musically all the while.
     Driving by a pasture, I saw a gang of starlings poking their beaks into the short grass to catch invertebrates among the grass roots.  And I noticed four handsome killdeer plovers also getting invertebrates from the grass roots level.      
     Continuing on slowly, I saw a pair of red-tailed hawks soaring, then perching together on a lone tree in a field.  It is their breeding season and I suspect they have a stick platform nursery in a nearby tree in a field or hedgerow.
     I also noted a few turkey vultures and an adult bald eagle circling over the fields in search of dead animals to scavenge.  The vultures and eagle were stately soaring on high, and added to the natural interest of that farmland.  
     I stopped a few minutes by an overgrown meadow of a few acres that straddled a free-running brook.  Multiflora rose bushes and poison ivy vines, both loaded with berries, sapling trees, and tall, dead weeds, including goldenrods, common milkweeds and evening primroses, all loaded with seeds, composed the pasture's thickets.  A blue jay, a northern mockingbird and a small gathering of American robins were eating berries, but not peacefully.  The mocker was trying to chase the other birds away from "his" berries.
     A song sparrow, a pair of northern cardinals and several each of American goldfinches and white-throated sparrows were ingesting seeds from the still-standing weeds.  And some individuals of those latter two species of seed-eating birds ingested seeds off the ground.
     My last stop was by a creek in a short-grass meadow where I saw several pairs of mallard ducks resting on slower-moving water.  As soon as I stopped by the water, a great blue heron that I didn't see flew up and away downstream a bit before plunking into the water again in hopes of catching fish.  A male belted kingfisher flew from perch to perch by the creek in his quest for small fish to eat.
     While watching the ducks, heron and kingfisher, I decided to scan the muddy and grassy shores of that creek with my 16 power binoculars for Wilson's snipe, which is a kind of inland sandpiper.  But being highly camouflaged along the shores of waterways and ponds, snipe are not easy to spot, even with field glasses.  But, sure enough, I spotted three beautiful snipe, each one poking its long bill rapidly into the mud under shallow water to catch invertebrates.  And while scanning for snipe, I noticed a couple of American pipits tail-wagging along the shore in search of  tiny invertebrates.  
     My search for wintering farmland birds in Lancaster County was successful.  I saw many of the bird species I would expect to see in cropland in winter.  And all of them were doing what they should have been doing.  There is peace and pleasure in the everyday.