At dusk early one evening last December, while driving through a quarter-mile farmland and woodlot valley along a stretch of Mill Creek about a mile outside Lancaster City, Pennsylvania, I noticed a screech owl perched and silhouetted on a roadside wire. As darkness gradually deepened, I stopped to watch that owl. Within a few minutes, it dropped into a weedy field, presumably to catch a mouse. And since it didn't come up again, I assumed it snared its intended prey in its sharp claws and was eating it.
While watching the owl, I thought of other birds and mammals I experienced in that little valley when I regularly drove through it in the not so distant past. In Winter, I almost always saw a resident flock of stately Canada geese in a harvested corn field or a lawn, either resting or eating corn kernels or blades of grass. Sometimes they, as a group, would be in Mill Creek to rest, or in the air in their travels from place to place. For several days early in March of one year, a boisterous flock of snow geese joined the noisy Canadas on a corn field and the lawn to consume grain and grass. Both species of geese were majestic in the air and on the ground.
I almost always saw little gatherings of white-tailed deer in harvested corn fields in that valley at sunset in winter. They were in the fields to ingest waste corn. Sometimes, I saw Canada geese and white-tails in the corn fields at once, presenting a thrilling sight to any outdoors person. The does were lithe and graceful, while big bucks, with elegant antlers, were magnificent fellows from November into January. But at any sign of danger, all deer dashed off the fields with their tails lifted and wagging from side to side. The white undersides of those signaling tails were the last of the deer to be seen as they ran into nearby wood lots. But when running stopped and tails were lowered, they disappeared, a trick that could confuse would-be predators.
Some birds I experienced only occasionally in this lowland along Mill Creek. Sometimes at dusk in winter, I heard a pair of great horned owls hooting to each other as part of their courtship. Once, I saw a horned owl fly from one wood lot to another. Though silhouetted black before a brilliant, orange sunset, I identified it as a horned owl by its large head and seeming lack of a neck.
Once I heard a barred owl hooting in that valley, but I didn't see it. Barred owls inhabit woods near creeks and lakes.
Sometimes I would see a great blue heron at any time of year wading on its long legs in Mill Creek to catch fish, frogs and crayfish. Herons also have lengthy necks and beaks to snare their prey.
Once on a winter's day I saw an adult bald eagle flying majestically down stream low over Mill Creek. Needless to say, what a thrill that was!
Once in winter, I saw a male northern harrier cruising back and forth, low over fields bordering Mill Creek and its thin, riparian woods of black walnut, and silver maple and ash-leafed maple trees. That gray hawk was watching for mice and small birds to catch and eat.
I saw a few kinds of mammals and signs of mammals in this valley. I was thrilled to see a couple of handsome red foxes trotting along, one on a winter morning and another at dusk in that same season. Those foxes were either hunting mice or mates, or both.
One time, in summer, I saw a beautiful female mink swimming in Mill Creek in this valley. She might have been hunting muskrats, fish or frogs to feed to young in a streamside den.
I've seen raccoon tracks in mud along Mill Creek where those masked critters hunted frogs, crayfish and mussels at night. Those ring-tails also consume berries, insects and just about anything edible.
A variety of small birds nest in this valley because of a diversity of habitats, including wood lots and an overgrown meadow of sapling trees and tall weeds and grasses. Carolina chickadees, downy woodpeckers and house wrens are some of the birds that raise young in tree cavities in the woods. Northern cardinals, song sparrows, American goldfinches and gray catbirds rear offspring in pasture thickets. The goldfinches are also there because of patches of Canada thistles that produce seeds the goldfinches ingest and seed fluff the goldfinches use to build their soft, lovely nurseries.
But there also are a few kinds of birds of special note nesting in the abandoned pasture along Mill Creek and its riparian woods. Two pairs of eastern bluebirds hatched young in tree cavities in the creek-side woods. And at least one pair each of indigo buntings and orchard orioles raised chicks in open, grassy cradles, the indigos in a bush and the orioles in a young tree.
I would see the male indigos singing from the tops of saplings and tall weeds. And a couple of times I saw a whole orchard oriole family in that overgrown pasture, including the beautiful black and chestnut adult male himself!
This little farmland valley is one of many in southeastern Pennsylvania. And every one of them has a variety of intriguing wild creatures living in it because of a diversity of habitats. One need only to visit one or more of these natural habitats to experience and enjoy a variety of interesting plants and wild animals in them and go home inspired by nature's beauties and diversity.
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