For a few hours on November 23, 2016, I drove along the main road through Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania to enjoy whatever nature offered. Along the way, I made three stops just off that road, for about 40 minutes each, in places that looked promising to spot wildlife.
Middle Creek has a variety of habitats, both natural and human-made, including a lake of a few hundred acres, many small ponds, wetlands, retention basins, streams, deciduous woods, hedgerows, weedy fields, and corn fields, which are stubble in winter. That number of different habitats causes a variety of wildlife in the area.
My first stop was a two-acre pond near Middle Creek's visitors' center. A small group of Canada geese were resting on the pond and a limited variety of ducks was on it as well. The weather, so far, has been mild, which means many ducks haven't come this far south yet. More than a dozen gadwall ducks of both genders hugged the protective edges of the imopoundment where small trees, grasses and weeds hang over the water. The gadwalls were "tipping up" to pluck vegetation with their shovel-like bills off the bottom of the shallows, moving along the shore as they fed. The drakes were handsome in their feathering of brown heads, gray bodies and black rears. The hens were mottled- brown all over, which camouflages them.
Six black ducks, one drake shoveler, a half-dozen male ring-necked ducks, two female common mergansers and one female hooded merganser were also on that pond. The shoveler, as his kind does, swam in tight circles in inches-deep water and used his webbed feet to stir up mud from the bottom. He used his wide beak to seine tiny water plants and animals from the mud he swirled into the water.
The ring-necks and both kinds of mergansers repeatedly dove under water from the surface in their quest for food. The ring-necks were after alga and other kinds of aquatic plants, plus the greens and seeds of sedges, grasses, smartweeds and other species of plants that fell into the water, and insects and snails. But both kinds of mergansers catch small fish. The different diets of these ducks, as with all life, helped cause their distinct species and eliminated, or reduced, competition for food among them.
Three non-duck species, an American coot, a great blue heron and a belted kingfisher were also at this pond while I was there. Coots look and behave like cross-breeds between ducks and chickens. They dive under water after aquatic vegetation, but also feed on plants on land at times, the reasons they are built the way they are.
The heron and kingfisher catch fish, but in different ways; and they are built for what they do. Herons have long legs to wade in water as they watch for vulnerable fish. And they have long necks and beaks to reach out and down from their stilts to catch prey. Kingfishers, on the other hand, have short legs and necks, which are not suitable for herons' style of fishing. But kingfishers have their own ways of fishing, either perching on twigs hanging over water or hovering into the wind over water. When fish are spotted, kingfishers dive beak-first into the water with a splash to snare their finny victims in their long, sturdy bills.
Moving on, I spotted a fat gray squirrel sitting on a limb of a white oak tree in a 100 yard long hedgerow of large trees extending from a gray deciduous woodland. That hedgerow was bordered on one side by a field of tall, beige goldenrods, asters and grasses and on the other by a harvested corn field of yellow stubble. I stopped to see what other kinds of wildlife were in that hedgerow and immediately saw it was full of birds.
A few permanent resident blue jays were in the hedgerow to eat and store white oak acorns. Meanwhile, a pair of eastern bluebirds and a resident northern mockingbird were eating multiflora rose, poison ivy and bittersweet berries.
A few chickadees, species unknown, several tufted titmice and a white-breasted nuthatch, all permanent residents here, were among the trees to eat dormant insects and their eggs. The chickadees and titmice scanned twigs for that food, while the nuthatch peeked into crevices in the bark for edible tidbits. The titmice also were among the neighboring corn stubble in their quest for invertebrates while the nuthatch chipped at corn kernels to ingest.
An individual in each of three kinds of woodpeckers, permanent resident downy and red-bellied, plus northern flickers, chiseled into dead wood in those big trees for insects. The downy and red-belly also fluttered down to the corn stubble for food. The downy chipped into stubble after insects while the red-belly ate corn kernels it chiseled apart.
But species of seed-eating sparrows and their relatives stole the show in that birdy hedgerow. I saw a couple of permanent resident song sparrows and a pair of northern cardinals there. Little groups of white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos were on the ground of the bordering weedy field to eat seeds. The white-throats scratched vigorously in the soil to get that food. I saw a lovely field sparrow perched on a twig with its pretty, pink beak glowing in the sunlight. And I saw a few handsome tree sparrows perched on the tops of goldenrod stems in the neighboring weedy field, with their red crowns highlighted in the sunshine. Every fall this sparrow species comes here from the far north, where it raises young, to spend the winter where seeds are more available to them.
At a third stop near two small ponds surrounded by weedy fields and a bottomland, deciduous woods of red maples mostly, I saw a few more interesting birds, including more Canada geese, another great blue heron, a blue jay, a flicker, a song sparrow, a red-tailed hawk and a female northern harrier, plus a white-tailed deer doe. The red-tail was stately while soaring and perched on a pin oak tree to watch for mice and squirrels, while the harrier, which is another kind of hawk, was interesting to watch hunting for mice and small birds. The harrier pumped along, into the wind, on its long wings, slow and low to the ground, while watching and listening for prey. When a potential victim is spotted, each harrier suddenly stalls in flight, turns and drops to the ground, seemingly in one motion, to seize the creature in its long, sharp talons.
That short trip to Middle Creek was interesting because of the variety of habitats there, including impoundments, woods and overgrown, weedy fields that provide various kinds of food and cover for a diversity of wildlife. Readers can find similar places near home to watch for a variety of interesting wild plants and animals.
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