Young Creatures on Our Lawn

     One morning early in May of 2016, I saw three half-grown gray squirrels eating sunflower seeds on the ground with their mother, a quarter-grown cottontail rabbit ingesting grass and clover, and two recently-fledged mourning doves consuming bits of sunflower seeds on our lawn.  Annually I see many kinds of young creatures on our suburban lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania, but not all at once.  Those youngsters are always entertaining and speak of reproductive success in our neighborhood year after year.  The young and their adaptable parents are lovely and interesting friends in our yard.  And they feed on many weed seeds and insects.
     The bushes, vines and trees planted on our lawn and in the neighborhood over the years provide natural shelter and food for these critters and others.  And sheds, bird houses, bird baths, bird feeders and decks in that same home area help entice and hold wildlife species here.
     The biggest family of nesting birds I see on our lawn is that of seed-eaters, including a pair each of permanent resident northern cardinals, song sparrows and house finches, and their offspring.  These are all pretty birds with lovely songs.  They come to our bird feeder and bird bath the year around.  And, sometimes, I see these birds feeding their fledged youngsters on our lawn.
     Mourning doves, most years, are in our yard the year around.  And they are one of the first birds to court in spring, often on warmer afternoons early in February.  Because each pair of doves raises two staggered broods of two young at the same time, it potentially can produce 12 youngsters in 6 months, or one pair of offspring per month, on average.  But because broods of baby doves are lost through strong wind breaking up their flimsy cradles or crows, opossums and other predators eating eggs or chicks, each pair doesn't bring 12 young to maturity in a year.
     House sparrows are originally from Europe, but have adapted well to North America, including in our neighborhood.  It seems there are as many house sparrows here as all other kinds of birds together.  These weaver finches from the Old World are attractive in their own plain way.  And they bring their recently-fledged chicks to the bird bath and bird feeder, where I mostly get to see them.    
     Permanent resident blue jays and migrant American robins and purple grackles all nest in neighborhood coniferous trees that provide dense cover.  The grackles hatch young in a group of half-grown Norway spruces in the neighborhood.  And I see the young of all these species in our yard for a few weeks until they gain the strength to move elsewhere. 
       Summering gray catbirds and house wrens hatch young in our yard and most years I see their young after they leave their nurseries.  Catbirds build twig cradles in bushes while house wrens nest in bird houses and tree cavities.  Both these species consume invertebrates.  Interestingly, I often see the catbirds watching mowers on the lawns.  The mowers flush out small moths and other kinds of insects the catbirds catch and eat.   
     And there are four other species of interesting wild animals that I have seen their young only once in our yard, though I know they are, as species, in the neighborhood much of the time.  One time, early in June, we had four recently-fledged screech owl youngsters on the four posts of our front porch railing, one on each post.  Another time a female opossum walked through our neighborhood with about five cute, little young on her back, each one with its tiny tail curled over hers.  I saw a brood of baby chickadees on our lawn one summer.  They hatched in a wren house we erected in the yard.  And one spring, a mallard hen hatched 12 ducklings under a bush on our lawn.  When the hen left her nursery with her young, the cute, little babies followed her like a winding stream of fuzz all in a line.
     Suburban lawns with their trees, shrubbery, bird feeders and baths, and out-buildings can be interesting wildlife habitats.  Wherever a species of life's needs are met, there it will be.