A Soggy Meadow in March

     In the early afternoon of March 10, I visited a soggy, bottomland cow pasture in lovely Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland a couple miles north of New Holland to see if there were water-loving birds visible there.  There were; over 200 resident Canada geese, about 20 resident mallard ducks, around 12 migrant American wigeon ducks, two pairs of migrant shoveler ducks and a pair of wood ducks.  All those geese and ducks appeared to be quite comfortable in that short-grass and sedge meadow of puddles, a quarter-acre, shallow pond and saturated soil.  The mallards rested on the edges of the pools while the Canadas and wigeons grazed on grass.  The wood ducks were loafing on a puddle, but they will search for an abandoned cavity in one of several white oak and sycamore trees that line one edge of this wet pasture.  The woody hen will lay up to a dozen eggs in that hollow.  And a couple pairs each of Canadas and mallards will hatch young in grassy nurseries on the ground.
     I saw a few other kinds of birds on that soggy meadow on March 10, including a pair of killdeer plovers, a few Wilson's snipe, a handful of male red-winged blackbirds, and a few each of purple grackles and American robins.  The killdeer will nest on a bare-ground spot somewhere in or near that pasture and their four chicks will run over the meadow and fields after invertebrates.  Snipe winter around the puddles, as long as they are not frozen.  They poke their long beaks into mud under the inch-deep water to pull out invertebrates.  The male red-wings sang their "konk-ga-reeee" songs from swaying cattails in the pasture, reeds their future mates will build grassy cradles on.  And the grackles and robins moved over the grass to consume earthworms and other invertebrates.
     I have seen these same kinds of birds in March in years past, plus, sometimes, a few each of migrating northern pintail ducks and green-winged teal ducks.  Mallards, wigeons, shovelers, pintails, teal and a few other types of ducks are called puddle ducks because they are at home in shallow pools, such as in this meadow, where they get some of their food.  Drakes of these species are colorful and attractive, but their mates are brown and streaked, to blend into their habitats for safety, especially when they are brooding eggs and raising ducklings.  Of all these puddle ducks, only mallards nest here regularly and in good numbers.  All the other species travel north or west to hatch young.
     Check out soggy, bottomland cow pastures in March for a variety of ducks and other kinds of birds that might be feeding there before moving on.  Those birds make March meadows interesting.