Birds at Speedwell Lake

     For an hour on May 3, 2016, I visited Speedwell Forge lake, which is owned by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.  That human-made reservoir had been drained to repair damage to its dam, but is now partly filled again.  Currently, it has lots of shallow water and large mud flats, bordered by deciduous woods and fields. 
     Many slim and attractive tree swallows and barn swallows together dominated the air over the impoundment as they pursued flying insects to eat.  Shallow water, mud flats and woods generate a lot of flying insects, many of which become food for the swallows.  Those swallows careened over the lake singly and in little groups, twisting and turning among their fellows without collision, creating quite an entertaining show.  
     At least five kinds of sandpipers, including lesser and greater yellowlegs and least, solitary and spotted sandpipers, altogether numbering more than two dozen individuals, roamed the flats and shallow water in their search for aquatic invertebrates to eat.  All these sandpiper species are either light-gray, dark-gray or brown, which camouflages them on the muddy flats. 
     Yellowlegs have long, yellow legs that allow them to wade into deeper water for food.  Those lengthy legs reduce competition with their short-legged relatives that are limited to the flats and inch-deep water to get invertebrates. 
     Only spotted sandpipers nest locally along waterways and impoundments, as they do across much of the United States.  The other species continue their migrations farther north.
     Solitary sandpipers are unique in their family of birds.  They are the only sandpiper species that hatches young in other birds' nurseries in trees in Canada's forests.  All other kinds of sandpipers hatch offspring on the ground.   
     Along with many swallows resting between feeding forays, several red-winged blackbirds perched on last year's cattails, and young crack willows standing in shallow water.  Hundreds of willows grew when the lake was drained, but now they might drown in the rising water.  The red-wings will attempt to nest on the cattails above the current water level.  But if the water level rises further, red-wing nurseries and young might be flooded, too.
     I saw a solitary drake wood duck and a family of mallard ducks, indicating those waterfowl species hatch young by this impoundment, as they do along most waters in this area.  The woody male was alone because his mate is setting on a clutch of about a dozen eggs in a tree hollow somewhere in the bordering woodland.  The mallard hen hatched her ducklings in a grass-lined nest on the ground near this reservoir's shore. 
     I saw several other kinds of water birds on or above the lake on May third.  Two female buffleheads and three American coots repeatedly dove under water from the surface to eat algae and other types of water vegetation, and invertebrates.  A pied-billed grebe dove under water to catch small fish.  And, at different times during the hour I visited Speedwell Lake, I saw an immature bald eagle, an osprey and a great blue heron fly over that reservoir.  Those large birds might have been on migration and were checking the lake for fish to catch and consume. 
     There was never a dull moment while I visited Speedwell Lake.  And I figured I saw most of what I could have spotted at that impoundment in the time I was there early in May.  I went home satisfied with my little trip to Speedwell Forge Lake.