Adapted to a Meadow and Stream

     I like to see what plants and animals can adapt to human-made habitats that have little food and shelter, and why living beings are in those seemingly barren habitats.  For an hour in the afternoon of March 19th, I stopped along a stream with barely a current in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania cow pasture to experience what creatures were active in those two habitats.  The waterway is slow-moving, making it more like a long, lean pond because of a dam, and that waterway's banks on both sides are lined with reed-canary-grass and a few, scattered black walnut and mulberry tree saplings.  Two tiny thickets of sapling trees add a third habitat to the farmland meadow.
     There was a small variety of adaptable and interesting wildlife on the stream and in the pasture and thickets on the 19th, as there often is in that meadow in spite of its sparse cover.  And those species of wildlife help demonstrate how they use built habitats to their own benefit.
     The meadow on both sides of the stream, and some of the trees along that waterway, were liberally sprinkled with migrant and handsome American robins and purple grackles that all were watching for earthworms and other invertebrates to eat.  The grackles were attractive in their iridescent, purple feathers.  But those robins and grackles won't be on that pasture long because they will be restless to keep moving to their nesting territories.
     A pair of resident mallard ducks swam on the stream, and the hen probably is working on laying a clutch of about `12 eggs, one per day, in a grassy nest among the matted-down reed canary-grass.  Meanwhile, a pair of resident Canada geese and a pair of migrant American wigeons grazed on short grass in the meadow.  The female goose probably had a partial clutch of eggs in the sheltering shoreline grass, but the wigeons will migrate to northwestern North America to nest.
     A couple of hen wood ducks raised broods on this stretch of stream in the past few years because local farmers erected a few wood duck nest boxes by this waterway.  Probably, one to three female woodies will rear ducklings here again this year.
     A flock of half a dozen pretty rock pigeons swirled over the meadow and stream and landed on rocks in shallow water.  There the pigeons drank by pumping the water up their beaks and throats much like  mammals do.  Pigeons originally nested on rock cliffs above the Mediterranean Sea and fed on seeds and grain in nearby fields.  Today, pigeons in America nest in barns and under bridges, but still feed on seeds and grains in agricultural areas.         
     About four striking, male red-winged blackbirds sang from grass stems and tree twigs along the waterway.  Their red shoulder patches are quite visible when they raise their wings with each song.  The singing and banner-like shoulder patches attract female red-wings for mating and rearing young, and repel rival, male red-wings.  A few female red-winged blackbirds will hatch babies in grass nurseries, each one attached to a few tall stems of reed canary-grass on the banks of the waterway.
     A couple pairs each of permanent resident song sparrows and northern cardinals live in the tiny, streamside thickets.  These species of attractive, small birds are very adaptable and nest in woodland edges, hedgerows and older suburban areas with their many larger bushes.
     A  pair of mourning doves walked along the water's edge ingesting grass seeds and tiny stones to grind those seeds in their stomachs.  These doves are related to rock pigeons, but native to North America.  They mostly eat grain in fields and raise young in shrubbery.
     I also spotted a couple of small, migrant male birds of two species in the meadow.  One was a beautiful eastern bluebird perched on a fence post to watch for insects in the grass.  The other was a tree swallow careening over the pasture and stream after flying insects to ingest.  The white of his belly alerted me to his presence.  But since I didn't see any bird boxes erected anywhere, I don't think either male would stay in that meadow to attract a mate for raising young in that pasture.
     Lots of raccoon tracks in streamside mud and muskrat droppings on mid-stream rocks indicated the presence of those two mammal species.  And since this time of the year is the breeding season for both species, there must be much activity by these animals at night.
     I always like to experience life in human-made habitats.  To me, those species of life have a future in spite of what we do as a society, and in many cases BECAUSE of what we do.  Adapting to less than ideal conditions helps secure many species of life into the future.