Hedgerow Wildlife in Summer

     On June 23rd, this past, I slowly drove by a half-acre, abandoned meadow of tall grass and red clover in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a pasture that has a multiflora rose hedgerow on one side of it and a row of black walnut and crack willow trees over a brook on the other side.  I creeped by that pasture because it looked like it would be harboring some nesting species of small birds.  Spotting a willow flycatcher perched on a dead twig near the road I was on, I quickly stopped the car.  The flycatcher was poised to zip out and catch flying insects with its beak in mid-air and go back to its roost, or another one, to eat its victim.  I used my car as a blind for an hour to watch for other kinds of birds in that little, human-made meadow.  Any species I saw at this time of year would be nesting in the protective cover there. 
     I saw more kinds of small birds in the hedgerow than I did among the trees.  In an hour's time I saw a male song sparrow singing from tree tops and the tips of shrubbery, a male house finch, a handsome pair of northern cardinals and a northern mockingbird.  All those species are permanent residents in the hedgerow.  And all are currently consuming invertebrates and feeding the same to young in their nurseries in the thickets of leaves and thorns.  In the fall and winter, however, the first three species will be eating nearby weed and grass seeds and the mockers will be ingesting berries, especially those from multiflora rose bushes.
     At least one pair each of summering willow flycatchers, gray catbirds and indigo buntings were also rearing offspring among the protective foliage and thorns of rose bushes.  I saw all three kinds in the open, including a beautifully blue male indigo singing from a tip of a walnut tree.  A male willow flycatcher was repeatedly singing an explosive, sneezing "fitz-bew" from an exposed perch among the shrubbery.  There probably was only one or two families per species, because that is all the hedgerow could support.  These species, too, fed their young on invertebrates.  These types of birds will migrate south in the late summer or fall to find food sources that will sustain them through another northern winter.
     Bird species I noted among the trees bordering the little pasture included a female American goldfinch, a male yellow-shafted flicker, a female Baltimore oriole, an eastern kingbird and a yellow warbler.  All these birds, except the goldfinches, consume invertebrates in summer.  And all of them, except the goldfinches, will go south for the winter.
     The goldfinch pair probably will nest in July, if there is a patch of thistles nearby to make their cradle from thistle fluff and feed their young pre-digested thistles seeds.  Goldfinches build their beautiful nurseries in the crotches of small trees or in shrubbery. 
     There are a few dead limbs among the living trees bordering the meadow.  The flicker pair could, or did, chip a nesting cavity into one of those dead branches to rear youngsters. 
     The female oriole flew in and out of a tall black walnut tree where she probably had a deep, woven pouch of grasses and vines filled with babies.  The hedgerow and a line of trees among fields, the stream, and the pasture make an ideal nesting environment for Baltimore orioles.
     Eastern kingbirds also nest in lone trees in fields and pastures.  And, being flycatchers, they perch on twigs and fences and flutter out after flying insects.
     Yellow warblers seem partial to hatching young among willow trees, that mostly grow along waterways.  Looking like yellow canaries, these warblers flit among the willows to catch a variety of small invertebrates.  
     There are many deserted meadows surrounded by hedgerows, streams and lines of trees in Lancaster County farmland that provide homes to a variety of wildlife, including nesting small birds.  And, as noted, it's predictable what kinds of birds will nest in such habitats.  Each species is tied to a certain niche.  Free as a bird is not true.  One has only to get out and experience what kinds of birds are raising young near your home.  And you will soon be able to predict what species will be nesting in any given habitat you experience.