Sitting on our deck and looking over our back yard in New Holland, Pennsylvania one early-evening toward the end of June of this year, I noticed a few blue jays rummaging in our two large pussy willow bushes. Looking closer, I saw they were eating Japanese beetles that were chewing on pussy willow leaves. These local jays were all the more noticeable because I hadn't seen much of them since the end of April. Because of their raising a brood of young, they were quiet recluses. I even saw one jay, a youngster of the year, begging with fluttering wings and being fed a beetle by a parent. Immediately, I looked for other species of adaptable and common creatures feeding on, in and over our typically manicured lawn of short grass, bushes, vines and trees that evening. Though trimmed weekly, our lawn has food sources, the same as any other habitat. And several kinds of critters take advantage of those food sources.
A young cottontail rabbit was nibbling grass and white clover leaves while an adult and a young American robin ran and stopped, ran and stopped over the short grass in search of earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates. And I noticed a few each of worker honey bees and bumble bees visiting white clover flowers in our lawn. White clover is a major, reliable source of nectar to bees and other types of insects through summer. Regular mowing makes the clover plants produce more and still more blossoms to replace the ones cut off during each and every mowing.
I knew from past experiences that there are many kinds of invertebrates living in the soil and under mulch in our yard. Earthworms get nutrition by eating the soil itself. Slugs, a small kind of land snail, millipedes and wood lice eat decaying plant material, such as dead grass from mowing that filters down through living grass. Centipedes and firefly larvae feed on some of those little invertebrates.
That evening, a few kinds of birds repeatedly visited our sunflower feeder hanging in a sheltering bush, as they do off and on all day. A pair of Carolina chickadees, a tufted titmouse and a few each of house finches and house sparrows took turns getting sunflower seeds from the feeder, creating entertainment to us, as they always do. The house sparrows seem to be bullies in that some of them, sometimes, chase other small birds from the feeder. Meanwhile, a young northern cardinal with its typical dark beak, and its father, a gray squirrel and a mourning dove ate bits of sunflower seeds off the ground under the feeder. And these were just some of the animals that come to that feeder each summer day, all of which add joy to our lives. Also, the squirrels and every bird species in our yard come to our bird baths to drink and/or bathe, adding more beauty and intrigue to our neighborhood.
As the evening wore on, I repeatedly saw up to a half dozen chimney swifts careening swiftly across the sky after flying insects, their only food. Each swift flaps rapidly, then soars with its wings stiff and swept-back, like a shot arrow point without its shaft. Each swift, while soaring, banks left, then right across the sky in hot pursuit of its victims.
Eventually the swifts retired for the evening down the inside of chimneys where they also raise young. And soon I saw up to four or five little brown bats flickering, swooping and diving across the darkening sky after flying insects, their only food.
Swifts and bats consume the same kind of food, but are not in direct competition with each other because they hunt prey at different times of day. And the bats, like swifts, are entertaining to us who watch for them.
I had fun watching our back lawn with food-gathering critters in mind. Readers can do the same in most any habitat you are in.
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