Another Overgrown Meadow

     In the middle of October of this year, I stopped at a former cow pasture straddling a tumbling, musical brook because I saw a flurry of small birds flutter from the rural road I was on and zip into young trees in that meadow.  That pasture in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland was planted to river birches, pin oaks, white oaks, sycamores, tulip poplars, red maples and other kinds of moisture-loving trees about seven years ago.  And a few small black walnut trees sprouted on their own.  Since that meadow couldn't be mowed well because of the waterway and trees, it was mostly overgrown with tall grasses, including foxtail grass, plus evening primrose, pokeweed, a little multiflora rose and other plants loaded with seeds or berries, food for small birds in October and through winter.     
     The birds I saw flying up from the roadside were a mixed group of several dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows recently arrived in Lancaster County from their nesting territories.  Those two common sparrow species probably will stay in that overgrown meadow through winter and eat seeds from the tall weeds and grasses.  And they will shelter each winter night among those same weeds and grasses, and the few brush piles lying in the pasture.  
     I saw a few each of permanent resident song sparrows and northern cardinals, and one field sparrow, feeding on grass seeds.  Those common species probably nested in small trees or bushes in the meadow.  Overgrown meadows are ideal habitats for pretty, little field sparrows.
     Little groups of American goldfinches and chipping sparrows flitted among the weeds and grasses to ingest their seeds.  Goldfinches were also on the birches to consume birch seeds.  These birds nest in Lancaster County, but the goldfinches will drift around the local countryside all winter in search of seeds to eat, while the chippers, and the field sparrow, will migrate south for the winter.
     I saw one each of a few other kinds of birds in that overgrown pasture, including an eastern phoebe that was hawking flying insects from mid-air and a yellow-rumped warbler eating tiny invertebrates from the leaves, twigs and bark of trees.  A male northern flicker was feeding on the ground, probably on ants at an ant hill he discovered.  Unlike most woodpeckers, flickers are mostly brown, which camouflages them on the ground where they get most of their food.  And an American kestrel was perched on top of a sapling tree as it watched for field mice and grasshoppers to capture and consume.          
     And there was a small gathering of American robins in sections of short grass in the meadow.  There they searched for earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates among the grasses and in the surface of the soil.  These robins probably nested in Lancaster County, but they have a choice of migrating south or staying here through winter.  They might stay here, if they can find ample supplies of berries to eat through winter and shelter for each freezing night. 
     Letting meadows grow wild, or planting them to trees and shrubbery, allows them to be better wildlife habitats than short-grass pastures.  Some farmers in Lancaster County are letting their meadows succeed as they will, which increases the numbers of species and individuals of wildlife in each one of them.  And increased wildlife activity makes those pastures more interesting to experience.