Foraging Killdeer and Larks

     One late morning at the end of August, I was driving home through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland after doing errands.  Driving by a field of alfalfa stubble left from "making hay", I saw a few killdeer plovers on it and then a few more killdeer.  I drove in reverse back the rural road I was on to the end of the field and then drove forward slowly to count the killdeer among that stubble.  I stopped every so many yards to count the plovers, with the aid of 16 power binoculars, in the field off to the side of my car.  Those birds walked and stopped, walked and watched for any invertebrates they could consume.  When stopped briefly, I saw a few killdeer catch critters from among the stubble and swallow them.  At the end of the hay field, I counted 46 killdeer plovers, which was a nice-sized, post-breeding group.  By August, the young of the year look like their parents and all killdeer, young and older, gather into groups for mutual protection as they feed.
     Driving on another two miles, I noticed several small birds and a few killdeer in a meadow with grass that was nipped close to the ground by horses.  I was on another country road with little traffic, so I stopped to identify the small birds.  They were northern horned larks; about 20 of them mixed with six killdeer.  And all those birds were foraging for invertebrates among the short grass and on the soil.         
     Killdeer are the size of robins while horned larks are sparrow-sized.  But they have traits in common because they share open-ground habitats, including bare soil, and those with short or sparse vegetation.  Both species are brown on top, which allows them to blend into their habitats to the point of being invisible until they move.  The plovers have two broad, black rings around their necks that break up their body shapes, which helps camouflage them.  The larks have black bibs and a black side-burn below each eye that helps disguise their body shapes, confusing would-be predators.
     Both these common species raise young in Lancaster County farmland, as well as on open-ground habitats across most of North America.  Killdeer are inland shorebirds that lay four white, dark-speckled eggs in a clutch directly on gravel or bare soil without the slightest notion of a nest.  Their fuzzy, camouflaged, open-eyed young are able to run about and feed themselves within 24 hours of hatching, which is good on open ground.
     Horned larks dig tea-cup-sized cradles in bare soil in fields where they lay up to five eggs per clutch.  The chicks hatch blind, practically naked and helpless, and must stay in their nurseries for about 12 days before fluttering into the surrounding fields.  But these chicks lie still, are camouflaged against the soil and fed in the nest by their parents.  Recently fledged chicks have dark-brown feathering, spotted with white, which makes them invisible in the fields. 
     Killdeer and lark nests in fields could be destroyed by plowing or cultivation.  If that happens, the pairs of each species try again and again until they successfully raise at least one brood a season.
     Killdeer plovers and northern horned larks are the only kinds of birds that raise young on bare ground in Lancaster County cropland.  And in late summer and autumn, both species gather into flocks of themselves in those same fields to forage on the abundant invertebrates, put on fat and get ready for the coming winter.  And they have to move around the farmland as machinery harvests crops in those agricultural areas.  But these are hardy, adaptable birds that were long ago pre-adapted to open ground.  They make use of a habitat that few other bird species can, adding more intrigue to the farmland they live on.                  

The Egret

     One afternoon in August, 2016, I parked along Mill Creek about a mile south of New Holland, Pennsylvania to watch a five-foot-tall, stately great egret stalking minnows in the clear, shallow water.  Surprisingly, that beautiful, white egret didn't seem to mind my car within twenty feet of it.  Suddenly, another great egret swooped in and landed in the creek near the first one.  Immediately, the first egret flew at the second one that quickly retreated across a tree-studded meadow, closely followed by its pursuer.  Both these members of the heron family landed in separate trees where their white feathering stood out.  Herons and egrets are territorial about fishing spots, which spaces the birds so all can find plenty of fish and other aquatic creatures to eat.      
     I moved about a hundred yards downstream and parked right along the creek to watch it and its overgrown banks for any kind of wildlife.  I was sitting in my car by the creek when the first egret flew straight toward me and landed in the creek about ten yards away from me!  I felt privileged!  And I wondered why that egret landed right beside me.  Was it coincidence, or something else?  As the egret stalked slowly along the shore next to the road, I saw a majestic great blue heron in the creek, carefully stepping out of the shadows of tree limbs hanging over the water and slowly wading toward my car as it watched for fish.  I pulled away to let the egret and heron hunt prey in peace.
     Every year from late July through September, I see several each of post-breeding great egrets and five-foot-tall great blue herons scattered here and there along the shallows of waterways and impoundments in the farmland of southeastern Pennsylvania.  Some years I see more great egrets here than in other years.   
     Great egrets and great blue herons are tall and magnificent in the air and while stalking prey animals, including fish, frogs, tadpoles, small snakes, large insects and other creatures.  They both have long legs for wading and long necks and beaks to reach out with lightning speed to catch victims in their bills.  And they are handsome to see flying powerfully on steady wing beats, with their necks tucked back in an S shape and their long legs trailing beyond their tails for steering and balance in the air. 
     Each species has a few rookeries in the mid-Atlantic States.  But many great egrets come north in July from rookeries in The South.  They are adults that are done nesting and their young of the year looking for waterways and impoundments that are full of prey animals.
     Interestingly, both great egrets and great blue herons use their long, sharp beaks to catch meadow mice in pastures near the streams they frequent to snare aquatic prey.  And the egrets and herons dunk their furry victims in water to slick their fur so those tall birds can swallow them more easily.
     During autumn, the great egrets and some of the great blues drift south to find water that won't freeze during winter.  But next March and April they will come north again to raise young and later scatter around to look for new fishing spots full of prey.                

An Inspiring Nature Drive

     This beautiful afternoon, for about an hour, I drove out of my home town of New Holland, Pennsylvania to enjoy whatever nature I could experience.  The sky had no clouds and the air was cooler and drier than it had been for awhile; a wonderful day to be in nature.  I only went two and a half miles out of town- through farmland, over a stream, by a small farm pond and into a woodland.  But I saw a lot of nature.
     My first stop was beside a larger, deeper part of the stream with a slow current just off the road.  There I saw about a dozen foot-long fish swimming into the slow current.  Looking at them through the clear water with my 16 power binoculars, I saw they were white suckers.  I could see their down-turned mouths they use to get food off the bottoms of waterways and impoundments.  By feeding from the bottoms, they reduce competition with other fish species for food.
     The hot-pink flowers of ironweed on five-foot-tall, iron-hard stems beautified a meadow bordering the above-mentioned waterway.  Several butterflies of a few kinds flitted onto those blooms to sip nectar.    
     As I drove along slowly, I saw several tall cranberry viburnums already loaded with red berries that will be food for berry-eating birds this fall and winter.  And right at those viburnums, two ruby-throated hummingbirds zipped across the country road right in front of my car.
     A hundred yards down the road, I drove slowly by a red clover hay field loaded with pink red clover blooms.  Swarms of pale-yellow clouded sulphur butterflies fluttered among those pink blossoms and landed on them to sip nectar.  I also saw a few monarch butterflies among those red clover flowers.  These butterflies will be the parents of the generation of monarchs that will migrate to forests in Mexico to spend the northern winter.         
     Along the country road I was on, purple-top grass stood about three feet tall.  The seed tops of each plant glistened reddish-purple in the sunlight; very attractive.
     A quarter of a mile beyond the hay field, I drove by another, even smaller brook right along the road and shaded by a row of willow trees.  There male black-winged damselflies, with striking, metallic-green abdomens, seemed to dance in shafts of sunlight over the brook while trying to repel rivals of their kind from their sections of the little waterway.  There, too, I saw the many orange flowers of spotted jewelweeds, the tiny, pink ones of smartweeds, the folding, blue blooms of Asiatic dayflowers and a single cardinal flower plant with several striking, red blooms along the shores of that tiny brook.
     As I drove by a farm pond in a meadow, I noticed a stately great egret wading in shallow water in search of little fish, tadpoles, frogs and other small creatures.  The egret was white all over, with long, black legs and a lengthy, yellow beak.  And, being a member of the heron family, it also had a long neck to reach out to grab its prey in its bill.
     Although I only drove about five miles, round trip, for about an hour, I saw a lot of beautiful, intriguing and inspiring nature.  For an emotional lift most anytime of day, get out to observe nature.  Even the most commonplace plants and animals close to home can give us enjoyment and inspiration.        
      

Butterflies Dancing Over Hay Fields

     Annually, in the middle of August, I drive through croplands around New Holland, Pennsylvania to see hay fields of alfalfa with pale lavender blooms and red clover that have pink blossoms.  Alfalfa and red clover are plants originally from Europe, but are sowed and harvested in North America for food for cattle, horses and other livestock.
     The flowers of these hay plants are pretty in themselves, and alfalfa blossoms have a sweet scent.  And some hay fields have both alfalfa and red clover in them, making lovely bouquets of blooms.  But those flowering plants are also interesting in the creatures that live among them, mostly the insects that sip nectar from their pretty blossoms.
     The time of insects in this area is July through September, with a peak of insect activities in mid-August.  At that time fields of alfalfa and red clover in flower shimmer with the erratic wanderings of hundreds of white and yellow butterflies that drink nectar from the blooms of those hay plants and the swift flights of dozens of post-breeding barn swallows and tree swallows that are after small, flying insects.  Those butterflies, mostly cabbage whites and clouded sulphurs that are originally from Europe, and the native swallows are entertaining and inspiring in their numbers and activities.  They are always a joy to see dancing in the sunlight over the fields.     
     Some other types of insects that sip nectar from alfalfa and red clover flowers include several each of silver-spotted skippers and tiger-swallowtailed butterflies, and some each of spicebush swallowtails, black swallowtails, monarch butterflies, carpenter bees and bumble bees.  A few kinds of grasshoppers eat the leaves of the plants and green darner dragonflies catch and eat small insects that fly among the blooms and land on them to sip nectar.  All those insects add to the beauties and intrigues of hay fields when they are in flower.
     Interestingly, I can determine what habitats surround hay fields by noting the butterflies on hay field blossoms.  That is because the caterpillars of many kinds of butterflies consume only one or two kinds of plants.  Silver-spotted skipper larvae, for example, and white-tailed deer, consume soybean leaves.  Soybean fields are near hay fields here in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Tiger swallowtail butterfly larvae feed on a variety of tree leaves.  Tiger swallowtail-tailed butterflies are most common in hay fields near deciduous woods.  Spicebush swallow-tailed butterfly caterpillars ingest spicebush and sassafras leaves in woodland under-stories.  Spicebush swallowtails in hay fields indicate those two kinds of woody plants are somewhere nearby.  Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweeds, so those native plants must be nearby, too.  And they are, mostly along roadsides and in abandoned fields.
     Eventually hay fields are cut for hay to feed farm livestock.  Then the butterflies must fly elsewhere to get nectar from flowers, though the swallows had a great time catching insects stirred up by the machinery in the hay fields.
     Hay fields have several beauties and intrigues during summer, especially around the middle of August when the most insects are the most active getting food, including nectar from alfalfa and red clover blooms.  For enjoyment and inspiration, watch for swarms of butterflies and other creatures in hay fields that have gone to flower.       

Noticeable August Migrants

     August is an exciting month of bird migrations in southeastern Pennsylvania, particularly of southbound shorebirds, swallows and diurnal raptors (hawks and eagles).  Those three groups of birds are easily seen by bird watchers and casual observers aware of those birds' migrations.
     The most regularly seen southbound shorebirds here are lesser yellowlegs and greater yellowlegs, both of which are sandpipers that nested on the shores of lakes in Canada's forests and solitary sandpipers that nest in abandoned birds' nests in trees near lakes in Canada's woods.  And other regularly seen migrant shorebirds here are least, semi-palmated and pectoral sandpipers and semi-palmated plovers, all of which hatch young on the Arctic tundra.  These migrating shorebirds land here and there on mud flats and adjoining shallow water to rest, and feed on small invertebrates they pull from mud and water.  Here in southeastern Pennsylvania farmland they patrol the shores of waterways, impoundments and partly-flooded fields and meadows, after heavy rains, to rest and get food before continuing their travels father south. 
     Little flocks of shorebirds in croplands are interesting to see moving about, exposed, on mud and water, but are often difficult to spot because they blend in to their habitat so well.  They usually are not noted until they move or fly up as a group, swiftly circle their feeding grounds a few times together and, finally, swoop down to land on the same place they just took off from and immediately resume feeding. 
     These southbound shorebirds, and a few other species that are here less regularly and in fewer numbers, come through here from mid-July through September.  But August is the peak time for these shorebirds migrating south to avoid the northern winter.
     Flocks of barn swallows and tree swallows sweep south across this area's farmland in August and September.  Both species nested in southeastern Pennsylvania, but are joined in August by the relatives of each that raised offspring farther north.  Each kind forms flocks of itself, but often the two species create large, mixed gatherings.
     Southward migrating tree swallows form particularly large, inspiring congregations of themselves that sweep over fields by the hundreds to catch flying insects and line up on roadside wires, sometimes in the thousands, to rest and digest between feeding forays.  Tree swallows continue to migrate through this part of Pennsylvania during August, September and into October, but aren't seen here again until April when they return north to rear young.   
     The most regularly seen southbound hawks and eagles in southeastern Pennsylvania in August are broad-winged hawks, ospreys, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks and bald eagles.  All of them on migration are entertaining and inspiring.  Broad-wings so south in flocks from eastern North American forests where they raised two young per brood, on average.
     Every morning, except rainy ones, starting in August and peaking in the middle of September, broadies rise from the woods they spent the night in and search for a thermal, which is a column of sun-warmed, rising air.  The broadies drift into the thermal, set their broad wings to catch the rising air and spiral effortlessly up and up with it.  At the top of the thermal, they peel off together and soar southwest in long lines and broad fronts which are thrilling to see.  But the Earth's gravity gradually pulls them down and these hawks must seek another thermal, and another, all day, every day they migrate southwest to Mexico, Central America and northern South America.
     Ospreys and red-tails are big, majestic hawks that mostly soar along the southwest running Appalachian Mountains when wind blows from the north or northwest.  Northwest winds get pushed up the mountains by wind behind them, pushing the hawks up with them.  Ospreys' wings are set in a shallow W while the red-tails' are flat out sails. 
     But ospreys and red-tails soar south off the mountains during west or south winds and can be seen most anywhere over cropland.  Little need then to watch for these hawks along the mountains.  Some ospreys stop at larger waterways and impoundments to catch fish before moving on.
     American kestrels and sharp-shins are both small hawks (a bit larger than robins) that alternate a lot of  rapid wing beats with soaring.  These little hawks often stick to southwest running ridges during north or northwest blowing winds, but scatter south cross-country during south winds.  But wherever they are, they zoom along in swift flight.
     Bald eagles are massive, magnificent birds of prey; thrilling to experience.  They, too, follow Appalachian ridges during northwest winds, but scatter everywhere on south winds.  Bald eagles, like these other kinds of diurnal raptors, can be spotted almost anywhere in this area during August.  Many balds stop at larger waterways and impoundments to catch fish or scavenge dead fish and other animals before continuing on their way south.
     Shorebirds, swallows, raptors and other kinds of birds migrate south in late summer and fall to avoid northern winters.  They do that not to avoid the cold, but to seek reliable sources of food that will sustain through northern winters.  These migrant birds are always inspiring to experience.  They help make August and the months of fall more intriguing.          

Bird Activities in our Yard

     We have had many outstanding bird activities in our manicured suburban neighborhood in New Holland, Pennsylvania in the last five years that have made our lives more interesting.  Our neighborhood has been planted to grass that is regularly mowed, shrubs and trees.  A couple of bird baths provide water and a few bird feeders offer additional nutrition.
     One day in March a few years ago, all our goldfish disappeared from our 100 gallon back yard pond.  Late in the afternoon a few days later a neighbor and myself saw a great blue heron flying low up our street, circle our lawns and land in one of his Norway spruce trees.  The neighbor asked if I had seen the heron at our fish pond a few days ago.  I said I hadn't, but then knew what happened to our goldfish!
     We see several mallard ducks in our neighborhood because of a one-acre pond about a quarter of a mile away.  A pair of those mallards would swim in our fish pond, which was a bit comical.  And one spring, a female mallard laid 12 eggs in a grassy nest under a planted bush in our yard.  I figured when she laid the last egg and started to incubate her clutch.  I also predicted when they would hatch after 28 days of incubation.  On the day I thought the mother duck would leave her nursery with her brood, I watched from a discreet distance.  And, sure enough, she waddled across our lawn to the pond with a fluffy, winding stream of cute ducklings following her!
     In recent winters, one or two Cooper's hawks would attack house sparrows and mourning doves at our bird feeders.  In its attempt to escape, one dove crashed into an upstairs window and fell to the ground dead.  I always knew when an attack was about to happen because the birds suddenly dove for cover in shrubbery, or tried to fly away.  A Coop would dive into the bushes after the birds and I could see the potential prey and hawk scrambling about in that shrubbery.  Sometimes the hawk did catch a bird and fly to a tree limb perch to eat it.  Feathers fell from the bird as the raptor tore off chunks of meat.
     During a blizzard one winter's day, I saw from our house a sharp-shinned hawk standing on the snow cover and tearing feathers off a house sparrow it killed.  The hawk was preparing the bird to eat it.  The feathers blew away in the wind as the little hawk ate bits of meat right in the middle of that cold wind and drifting snow.  After several minutes, the sharpy flew away, leaving only a sparrow foot and beak, both of which were quickly covered by the falling and drifting snow, as though nothing happened there.
     Mourning doves are on our lawn the year around, mainly because of bird feeders during winter.  But in spring and summer a few pairs and their young dominate our neighborhood.  We hear their cooing all day, every day.  We see them and their fledged offspring flying about all through the warmer months.  Because pairs of doves have two staggered broods of young at any one time during the warmer months, each pair produces one pair of youngsters every month from April into September, for a total of 12 young a year, if it weren't for accidents like nests falling from trees in winds and predators such as Cooper's hawks, American crows, blue jays and others lurking in suburban lawns.
     We see several fledgling birds in our neighborhood every summer.  We see young mourning doves, northern cardinals, blue jays, American robins, purple grackles, gray catbirds, Carolina wrens, house wrens and house sparrows every summer on our lawn.
      Over the years, I have watched gray catbirds intently watching the grass cutting process on our yard.  They are eagerly looking for small, brown moths and other insects to be flushed out of the grass by the mower, insects the catbirds pursue, often grab and eat.  Those catbirds apparently associate grass mowing with food.
     One afternoon around the middle of June, I was sitting in our quiet living room beside an open window when I was almost knocked off the chair by a wood thrush singing, seemingly right at my elbow.  Peering cautiously out the window, there perched a handsome male wood thrush in a red-osier dogwood bush who sang his lovely, flute-like "e-o-laaa" and "a-o-leee" songs.  I stood still and the thrush continued fluting beautifully for close to a minute it seemed.  That thrush was my Central America and deciduous forest connection.
     One warm, sunny afternoon in mid-April I heard a blue jay vocalizing sweetly and saw him looking about on the lawn for any kind of invertebrate.  When he found a juicy tidbit, he flew into a small tree and fed it to another blue jay, presumably his mate.  Then down to the ground for another morsel to feed his love.  All this was blue jay courtship and about six weeks later I accidentally saw the results of that courting in the form of nearly fledged, young jays in a grass and twig cradle in an eight-foot-tall red juniper tree in our yard.         
     By luck one summer day, I saw a song sparrow feeding a fledged cowbird chick in our yard.  We hear about such happenings, but seldom actually see it.
     Carolina wrens are noted for nesting in strange places, such as in pockets in pants hung on wash lines, and in boots left outside, sheds, flower pots and other unusual spots.  And a few years ago, a pair of Carolinas had a nursery in a neighbor's outdoor grill they never seemed to use.  The adult wrens continually flew in carrying food and flew out carrying droppings, a sure sign of youngsters within the grill.  Eventually trips to the grill ceased and I figured the young fledged.
     These are some of the bird activities that happened in recent years in our suburban neighborhood in a small town.  Most readers can experience other bird activities in their neighborhoods that will be as interesting as the ones that too place in my home area over the last several years.      
        

Three Salamander Lifestyles

     Salamanders are amphibians and the word amphibian means two lives.  Most amphibians start life in water like fish, but later leave the water and live on land, only returning to water to spawn.  But not all salamander species follow that lifestyle.  Some species developed other ways of living to adapt to their respective niches and survive.  Here in southeastern Pennsylvania, spotted salamanders, eastern newts and red-backed and slimy salamanders represent three salamander lifestyles.
     All adult amphibians (frogs, toads and salamanders) are predatory, feeding on creatures they can handle, which mostly is invertebrates.  And all amphibians in this area are small and hidden away in damp places to keep their bodies moist for survival. 
     Spotted salamanders, a kind of mole salamander, are called that because they live in the ground under carpets of fallen, dead leaves in forests in eastern North America.  They start life with four legs, swimming tails and external gills in vernal ponds where their parents spawned during rainy days in the woods in March.  But after a few months living in water, they come out onto the land where they spend the rest of their lives, except to spawn milky-white, gelatin-like masses, with several eggs in each one, in the same woodland pools they hatched in.  
     The attractive adult spotted salamanders are up to six inches long and black with two rows of yellow or orange spots down their backs.  They are seldom seen, except when spawning or marching across forest floors to pools during rainy March nights.
     Eastern newts, another kind of salamander, have three stages in their life history.  These newts of the eastern United States start life in water as brownish larvae, each with four legs, two external gills and a swimming tail.  But after several months, they emerge on land, become striking reddish-orange with red spots, each one thinly ringed with black.  The bright color of these red efts warn predators that efts taste bad.  
     After two or three years of living in moist places on land, efts return to ponds, transform into beautiful adults that are olive on top with red spots, yellow below and covered all over with black dots.  There they live the rest of their lives, and spawn there as well.
     I think eastern newts took that third step in their life cycle because they couldn't compete for space and food with their relatives on land.  So they gradually created their own niche as adults living in water, where they have lived ever since.  But they still need to come to the surface to take oxygen from the air.
     The ancestors of the related red-backed and slimy salamanders may have adapted to damp forest floors where there was no standing water to spawn in.  Over time, they developed the habit of laying clutches of up to a dozen eggs, each with a thicker, more protective covering, in moist, protective places under rocks, fallen logs and leaves, and other objects on forest floors.  Today the young of red-backs and slimies don't pass through an aquatic phase, but hatch on damp soil in humid places as miniatures of their parents.  These species of salamanders are not tied to water to reproduce, which allows them to spread farther and farther across wooded landscapes.
     Red-backed and slimy salamanders could even be creating new species by being isolated in islands of woods, surrounded by seas of fields, lawns and other human-made habitats not beneficial to salamanders.  The salamanders can't travel over those dry environments to exchange genes.  Any genetic quirk that aids survival in a woodlot would stay in that patch of woods, creating a new species in that woodlot only.  These salamanders survive in tiny woods, even without pools of water, because they have long ago adapted to spawning on moist soil in shaded, protective niches. 
     These three kinds of salamanders in southeastern Pennsylvania, as examples, demonstrate three successful lifestyles.  It pays for any form of life to diversify as much as possible to use as many niches as possible.

Treefrog Callings

     During spring in the Middle Atlantic States, males of three kinds of treefrogs in the Hylidae family, spring peepers, gray treefrogs and chorus frogs, broadcast simple, beautiful courting songs that bring the genders of each species together for spawning in the shallow water of impoundments and wetlands. 
     The courtship calling of all frogs and toads is simple, repetitive and ancient, a remnant of the eons ago Amphibian Age.  Their peeps, trills, grunts and moans are delightful to hear because they symbolize spring's arrival, the long ago past, and just thrilling to experience as another part of nature.  The throat of each courting male bulges with every vocalization, amplifying its volume so females of each kind can hear them and come to the males in or near shallow water to spawn.
     We hear the three species of tree frogs mentioned above far more often than we see them because of their small sizes and blending into their habitats.  And we note their presence and identify them more by sound than sight.  I've been happy to hear the vernal choruses of each of these species of little frogs many times through the years here in the Middle Atlantic States.
     Spring peepers are the most common and widespread of these treefrogs in the Mid-Atlantic States.  Most anyone who goes to appropriate habitats in the eastern United States and Canada in April to hear male peepers will probably have opportunities to do so.  Light brown with a darker X across their backs and only an inch long, peepers' loud peeping far out-strips their diminutive size.  Many males calling together, while perched on cattails and other plants emerging from the shallows,  make an almost deafening sound.  But from a distance, they sound like sleigh bells.  They peep mostly at night, but also on rainy days.        
     During the warm evenings of May and June, male gray treefrogs emit short, musical trills from trees along the edges of the shallow water they will spawn in.  About an inch and a half long, they are light gray or dull green with darker markings, and, to me, look like little toads.  They live in the eastern half of the United States where there are abundant trees growing in ample wetlands.
     But chorus frogs are my favorite treefrogs because I like hearing their soothing, gentle trilling that sounds like a thumb nail running up the teeth of a comb, " cccrrreeeeeeeekkk", with an upward pitch.  That melancholy sound is heard across the mid-west of Canada and the United States east to southeastern Pennsylvania and the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula  into The South.  
     Only an inch long and gray with darker markings for camouflage, chorus frogs' greatest beauty is in their mellow trills that I have always enjoyed hearing in the Middle Atlantic States during March and into April.  To me, the love songs of male chorus frogs characterize most the shallows of wetlands in thickets of tall grass, cattails, bushes and small trees at dusk in early spring.  Their calm, ageless calling touches my soul.  All is well with the world!
     Though seldom seen, the beautiful, perhaps mystifying, songs of these common and widespread treefrogs make time spent outdoors in spring more enjoyable.  And they are a reminder of the distant past, the long ago Age of Amphibians.             

Solace From Nature

     Early in the afternoon of August 11, 2016, I visited two human-made habitats in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to see what plants and animals were visible.  One place is a church campus and the other is a small park along a slow part of Mill Creek, both within eight miles of home.
     As I drove across the large parking lot of the church, I saw several birds standing or lying on the black top and a few of the several stone islands in that lot.  With binoculars, I counted 30 killdeer plovers, all of them in the shade of the planted trees in the stony places.  Those killdeer feed on invertebrates on the adjacent and expansive short-grass lawn of the church and probably hatched young among the stones.  But August 11 was sunny and hot and those inland shorebirds were resting in the only shade available; smart birds.
     Once while I was there, the killdeer took flight together in a loose flock and circled the parking lot a few times, alternately flashing white bellies and brown backs as they flew.  But soon they swooped down to the shade of the parking lot. 
     At least a half dozen barn swallows dashed and swooped in mid-air behind a lawn mower to catch insects stirred up from the grass by the mower.  Swallows are now gathering prior to their migration south, so they won't be in this area much longer this season.
     Sneezeweed, a tall plant with beautiful yellow flowers, dominated a quarter-acre low spot on the church's lawn.  Bumble bees, pearl crescent butterflies, cabbage white butterflies, a couple of monarch butterflies and other insects sipped nectar from those blossoms, creating an inspiring show.
     Moving on to a water-filled retention basin rimmed by tall cattails on the church campus, I saw several dragonflies of three kinds, green darners, twelve-spotted skimmers and white-tailed skimmers.  Male darners have green or blue abdomens, male twelve-spots have three alternate dark and white spots on each of four wings and male white-tails have white abdomens.  Those characteristics make the males of each species more noticeable and attractive to potential mates.  At least those male dragonflies were more visible to me than their respective females.
     Those dragonflies, mostly males visible to me, buzzed rapidly back and forth low over the shallow water after insect prey.  And jealous males also chased each other and potential mates.  The dragonfly's swift flying on their four stiff wings was entertaining.  And a few dragonflies landed on cattails to rest or eat victims they caught in mid-air.     
     While watching the flights of dragonflies, I heard the gulping and twanging of several male green frogs in the shallows at the bases of the sheltering cattails.  They should be cautious because I saw a recently fledged green-backed heron stalking stealthily among the cattails.
     At the back-up water from a dam on Mill Creek I saw scores of bluet damselflies, about a dozen green darners, a few twelve-spotted skimmers and a score of common carp.  Looking at them through binoculars, the many male damselflies were thin, inch-long strips of blue skimming rapidly back and forth just above the very slow-moving surface of the pond.  Females were with them, but they were brownish for camouflage and more difficult to see.
     Some of the damselflies were coupled as they flew low over the water.  And some couples were spawning eggs into the protection of clumps of alga on the water's surface.  But it was the number of these constantly moving damselflies, all just above the water, that was the show at this pond.
     Meanwhile, just below the water's surface, the several ponderous carp either lay still in the sunlight or moved slowly.  Carp are mostly brown with yellowish-brown fins, originally from Asia and can be disruptive to native fish.  But I like carp in habitats already disturbed by human activities.  And until those habitats are restored to more natural condition, carp will be a dominant, interesting fish in them.  Carp are better than no life at all.
     Just as I was about to leave this slow-water stretch of Mill Creek, I saw a wary, timid family of practically-grown wood ducks on water along the far bank, back in the shade of protective tree limbs hanging over those shallows of the creek.  Soon woodies will be gathering into ever larger flocks prior to their migration south for the winter.
     As I left Mill Creek, I felt the peace and beauty of that waterway and its lawn and tree-lined shores during a warm, breezy afternoon.  It was quiet there and I went away with a feeling of contentment.
     Both habitats I visited that afternoon were human-made.  But they were interesting with adaptable life that makes a day more worthwhile.  Any reader can benefit from the solace of nature as I do.    
    

A Busy Meadow

     In the early afternoon of August 8, 2016, I was driving through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland in search of anything new or interesting in nature.  I came to a patch of tall peppermint plants in bloom about 30 yards off the country road I was on.  I stopped at that sunny meadow to see what insects were visiting the mint blooms to ingest nectar, pollinating those blossoms in the process.  I mostly saw cabbage white and pearl crescent butterflies, silver-spotted skippers, carpenter bees and digger wasps on them.   
     Digger wasps are about an inch long and black with rusty-red abdomens.  Adult diggers consume nectar from flowers but their larvae feed on the larvae of June beetles living in the soil.  Female diggers tunnel through the ground after June beetle grubs, sting them to paralyze them and lay an egg on each grub.  Each wasp larvae eats its beetle larva, overwinters in the pupa stage and emerges the next summer ready to ingest nectar and mate.
     While I was watching the insects on the mint flowers, I noticed the mints weren't alone in their stand.  I also saw the orange blossoms of spotted jewelweeds and the small, pink blooms of smartweeds.  All those plants develop best in damp ground and these were growing in a shallow ditch in the pasture. 
     I also began to notice the meadow in general.  A brook, and two lines of trees and shrubbery, each one about 100 yards long, broke up the continuity of the pasture.  I saw, too, that this was a busy meadow of birds and bugs.  I stayed to watch that human-made pasture for about an hour and a half.
     Dozens of post-breeding barn swallows zoomed through the air close to the meadow after flying insects.  They were done nesting in local barns and were preparing to drift south to avoid the northern winter by developing wing muscle strength and gaining weight.
     Over a score of starlings and brown-headed cowbirds followed a few grazing horses as they grazed in the meadow.  The horses stirred up insects with their hooves as they stepped, making those bugs noticeable to the birds.
     I saw that the short-grass meadow I was studying had patches of patriotic flowers.  There were pink flowers on red clovers, white blooms on Queen-Anne's-lace and some blue blossoms on chicory.  All those plants, however, are originally from Europe.  But a few yellow and black male goldfinches, which are native to North America, didn't care about that.  They were on chicory plants to eat seeds that developed on the already pollinated flowers.  
     I also noticed a killdeer plover picking up invertebrates from the pasture.  Killdeer are inland shorebirds that nest on nearly bare ground and gravelly parts of meadows and fields across North America.
     And I saw a wood chuck moving about slowly and nibbling vegetation in the meadow by one of the lines of trees and shrubs.  Chucks live in holes in the ground they dig themselves.  Abandoned chuck holes are used by red foxes, coyotes, skunks and other mammals.
     The clear, flowing brook figured heavily in the variety of animal life in that pasture.  Schools of stream-lined black-nosed dace swam easily into the current of that narrow waterway as they watched for tiny invertebrates to eat.  A few striking, male black-winged damselflies that have metallic-green bodies courted females along the brook.  Their fluttering flights low over the sparkling water seemed like dancing in the sunlight.  They were once predatory nymphs in that brook and females will lay eggs in that same waterway.  And a pair of big green darner dragonflies were attached to each other as the female of the species dipped the end of her abdomen in slower-moving water to deposit eggs.
Predatory dragonfly nymphs will develop from that spawning.
     A few kinds of small birds, including several beautiful American goldfinches of both genders, a few house finches of both genders, a family of chipping sparrows, a striking pair of indigo buntings and several house sparrows entered a slow, shallow section of the brook to drink and bathe.  Sometimes there were several birds of a few species flutter-bathing at once, creating an attractive and interesting show.  I thought the blue of the male indigo was particularly lovely. 
     A few kinds of common butterflies, including cabbage whites, and the beautiful tiger swallowtails and spicebush swallowtails were "puddling" in mud on a bare-soil path made by the horses going to the brook to drink.  The butterflies were ingesting moist soil and, probably, horse urine to consume minerals they can't get from flowers.
     One or two each of northern cardinals, song sparrows and gray catbirds flitted among the trees and other plants in the two hedgerows, adding to the diversity of life in that meadow.  They had already nested in those lines of trees and bushes and were gaining weight and regaining strength for the coming fall and winter.  The catbirds will migrate south for the winter, but the cardinals and sparrows will live out their lives in those hedgerows where they hatched.  This winter they will eat weed seeds and spend cold, winter nights huddled in the shrubbery.
     Though created and used for the good of people, that meadow, like other human-made habitats, has an interesting diversity of adaptable life in it.  A key to survival is to be adaptable and make use of what is available.  In the meantime, we humans can enjoy experiencing plants and animals that have adapted to human-made habitats.                       
    

Tree Bark Habitats

     At first appearance, tree bark seems sterile, but it is a habitat for certain adaptable and commonplace kinds of life in the Middle Atlantic States, as elsewhere.  But one has to look closely to see most of the life on tree bark.  Squirrels can be obvious scurrying up trees and out their limbs, but most life on bark is small, often still, and much of it blends into the gray or brown of the bark.
     Mosses, lichens and tiny mushrooms are the bulk of the non-animal life living on bark, forming little gardens that are most apparent during and just after a rainfall.  Mosses, lichens and mushrooms absorb the water, which swells them and makes them more visible. 
     Lichens are a flat combination of fungi that holds a place on the bark and absorbs rain water, and alga that has green chlorophyll that is powered by sunlight (photosynthesis) to combine carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water to make a sugar that is the food for both the fungi and the alga. 
     Mosses also have chlorophyll and make their own food.  But the mushrooms get their nutrition from breaking down a little of the bark.
     Two kinds of daddy long-legs, eastern and brown, are spider relatives most noted for their eight, very long legs, compared to the sizes of their bodies.  They are the critters most likely seen on tree trunks and branches in woods and older suburban areas where they catch and eat tiny invertebrates during warmer months.  Both kinds of daddy long-legs are camouflaged on tree bark, but some are seen, caught and eaten by a variety of birds and other critters anyway.
     Carpenter ants and other kinds of ants commonly run up and down tree bark on missions known only to them.  Carpenter ants are the big, black ones that live in colonies in cavities they dig themselves in dead wood under the bark.  When excavating tunnels, they poke their heads out of holes in the wood and bark to dump bits of wood from their mandibles.  That wood piles up on the ground, giving away the presence of carpenter ants at work.
     Willow aphids and other kinds of aphids live on soft, young bark and suck sugary sap from it.  Certain types of ants protect aphids and are rewarded with ingesting the sugary waste aphids exude from their rears, a waste called honeydew.  But the attractive, little lady bug beetles, and their nymphs, consume the aphids, creating another food chain of who eats whom.
     Brown creepers and two species of nuthatches are small birds in the Mid-Atlantic States that walk up and down tree bark and peer into protective crevices for invertebrates and their tiny eggs.  Creepers have slightly down-curved beaks they pry into cracks to get food.  Nuthatch beaks are stout and a tiny bit up-turned to pick food from tree bark crevices. 
     Creepers flutter to the bottom of a tree trunk and slowly spiral up the tree in search of invertebrate food.  But nuthatches are the only family of birds that can walk down tree trunks head first.  Not even woodpeckers can do that.  It is amazing how adapted some species of life are to their niche, which allows them survival in that niche.
     Mostly at night, sometime in August, many annual cicada grubs emerge from the soil of suburban areas and climb trees and other objects to varying heights.  Coming to rest, the brown, outer shell of each grub splits along the back and the winged, adult insect crawls out of its old exoskeleton.  After gaining strength, each adult cicada flies away in search of a mate or mates, leaving the empty shell on the tree bark as a reminder to us that it was there.  And now, during August days, we hear the almost incessant, pulsing whining of several male annual cicadas high in the tree tops.  That buzzing whine brings the genders together to mate and lay fertilized eggs.
     Though seemingly uninhabited and dull, tree bark is alive with life in the Mid-Atlantic States, if one looks closely.  It is amazing where life is.  It seems every niche on Earth has life in it.  
     
     
 

Mullien and Teasel

     I never saw so many flowering teasel plants along rural roadsides as I have during the latter part of July of this year.  I saw many patches of teasel here and there for several miles as I drove along.  And common mulliens were among some clumps of teasel, but not as abundantly.
     I began to think about the characteristics teasel and common mullien have in common.  Both these tall kinds of plants are common in pastures, abandoned fields and roadsides all over eastern North America.  And though aliens from Europe and considered to be weeds by most people, both are here to stay.
     Teasel and mullien stalks were used by Europeans during medieval times.  Teasels have hard and spiny flower heads and stems and were used to tease out wool.  Dead and dry common mullien stalks have holes where the flowers and seeds formed.  But when the seeds fall out to the ground, those holes are filled only with air.  The dead, holey mullien stalks in medieval Europe were dipped in liquid animal fat, which soaked into, and hardened in, the cavities and the dried stems themselves.  Later they were lit as torches to be used at night.            
     Both these plants have two-year life cycles.  During the first year of its life, each plant develops several leaves only in a circle close to the ground.  But during its second year, each plant grows flower stalks, and blossoms that are pollinated by insects.  And when the seeds of each kind are mature and fall to the ground, both types of vegetation die, leaving dead, upright stalks that are picturesque in winter snow.
     Several autumns ago I brought a handful of dead teasel flower heads and their stems home for an indoor dried arrangement.  Not thinking, I dragged those teasel stems across our lawn to the house.  And, sure enough, young teasel plants grew the next spring in our yard.  But I was not concerned.  I just mowed the grass each week as I always had done, which included mowing off the flower stalks of teasel during the second summer.  Those plants died without producing seeds, leaving no descendants on our lawn.     
     Teasels have small, pale-lavender flowers in their bristly seed heads.  Blossoms in the middle of each attractive flower head bloom first while flowers on the top and bottom of each head bloom last.  The blossoms between the middle and the ends bloom in succession from the middle out to each end, an unusual way for any plant to bloom.
     Common mulliens have numerous and cheerful yellow blossoms all along the upper half of their flower stalks.  And this kind of mullien has one, two or three picturesque spikes of pretty blooms during their second year. 
     Insects visit the flowers of both plants to sip their nectar, pollinating them in the process.  The insects get food, mice and seed-eating birds consume the resulting seeds during fall and winter, and the vegetation reproduces themselves from seeds that were not ingested.
     Teasel and common mulliens have several traits they share, making them the more interesting to us.  They also produce food for a variety of small wildlife.  And they beautify many country roadsides with their lovely flowers.  Look for them when visiting farmland and other rural areas.