Mill Creek at the hamlet of Mascot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is an oasis of slow-moving creek a quarter mile long, along a narrow wetland under a thin, battered riparian woods completely surrounded by farmland. One side of this waterway is bordered by short-grass pastures and a small, slender public park of short grass and a few trees. The other side is a small, lean wildlife sanctuary because of its abundance of protective vegetation. The ground level of this sanctuary is dominated by skunk cabbage, reed canary-grass, stinging nettle and spotted jewelweeds. Elderberry bushes and gray-stem dogwoods compose much of the shrub level and black walnut, ash-leafed maple, silver maple, crab apple and mulberry trees dominate the canopy. Virginia creeper and poison ivy vines crawl high up the trees.
Skunk cabbage plants are a moisture-loving species of bottomland forests. This plant, however, adapts to sunnier conditions when woodland canopies are removed, if the ground moisture remains.
Some dead, but still-standing, trees at Mascot are riddled with old woodpecker holes. A few kinds of small, woodlands birds, such as permanent resident Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice and summering house wrens nest in some of those tree hollows.
By the middle of May, a few female wood ducks hatch broods of about 12 young each in larger tree cavities or in wood duck nest boxes erected for them. I see these broods of ducklings growing up now and then during each summer.
A few pairs of red-winged blackbirds nest in the tall reed canary-grass, a grass that grows well in sunlight. Singing males swaying on the tall grasses are handsome in their black feathering and red shoulder patches. Those males drive crows and other would-be predators away from young red-wings and help feed the offspring. Brown, dark-striped female red-wings build grassy nests they attach to reed canary-grass stems a few feet above the ground. They also do the bulk of feeding their chicks in their nurseries and after the young fledge.
A pair of spotted sandpipers, a species of shorebird that nests inland throughout most of the Lower 48 States, catches and eats invertebrates on the dam of this creek, its shorelines and trees fallen into the water. Spotty pairs also raise young along this creek, as they do by most other waterways and impoundments in the United States.
Every summer, a pair or two of rough-winged swallows builds cradles of grass in drainage pipes in the retaining wall of the dam. This nesting niche is a substitute for the swallows' tradition of digging holes in streambanks to raise young. Rough-wings zip over the water and nearby fields and pastures to catch flying insects to ingest.
A pair or two each of summering Baltimore orioles, cedar waxwings and eastern kingbirds rear offspring in riparian trees by the creek. Each species consumes a variety of invertebrates and feed them to their youngsters. Waxwings and kingbirds fly out from twig perches to snare flying insects. Female orioles make beautiful, deep pouches of grasses, twigs and vines on twigs at the tips of branches hanging over the creek.
Permanent resident northern cardinals, song sparrows and American goldfinches and summering gray catbirds and willow flycatchers nest in streamside shrubbery. All these birds, except the goldfinches, feed on invertebrates. The goldfinches consume thistle seeds and other kinds of seeds.
Carp and bluegill sunfish spawn during May and into June in the slow-moving shallows of this creek. The carp thrash and splash in the shallow shores of the creek.
Several bluegill nests in a cluster are visible in inches-deep water near the dam. Each male removes alga and dead leaves from the bottom of the waterway to make a nursery about a foot in diameter. Each nest is guarded by the male that made it. And when a female bluegill swims over a nest, its constructor swims tightly around and around with her and fertilizes her eggs as they exit her and settle in the nest. In this way, each male bluegill courts as many females as he can. Meanwhile, he guards the eggs and small fry in the nest from other fish, including his own kind.
Other kinds of cold-blooded, aquatic creatures inhabit this part of Mill Creek and are active and visible in summer. Male green frogs and bull frogs croak and bellow respectively in May, June and July. A few snapping turtles are here, forever searching for prey. Bluet damselflies and green darner and white-tailed dragonflies cruise low over the water in search of mates, and flying insects to eat.
Adult dragonflies are large and entertaining insects when in flight. And many of them have attractive colors. But they are harmless to people.
A few kinds of creatures have put in cameo appearances in summer in the sanctuary along Mill Creek at Mascot. I once saw two white-tailed deer in a thicket by the creek. Another time, I saw a moorhen stalking invertebrates among the reed canary-grass along the shore of the waterway. I wondered if it nested there? And one summer, I saw an adult bald eagle perched in a large tree over the creek and stalking fish. This might have been one of a pair of eagles feeding young in a nest a mile away from Mascot.
That short, thin strip of riparian woods and wetland in the middle of extensive cropland at Mascot is a wildlife sanctuary in name and reality. It is amazing how much adaptable life can be found in an oasis of natural shelter and food, almost no matter where it is located and how little it may be. Wherever a species of life's needs are met, that species will be there.
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