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.