Encounters With Turkeys

     Late in November of 2016, I happened across about 40 handsome wild turkeys of both genders together in a corn stubble field in southern Berks County, Pennsylvania.  There they scratched up and ate corn kernels missed by harvesters.  The big, dark-feathered turkeys and beige corn stubble were a pretty picture in a setting of a bordering, green winter rye field and a nearby, gray woodland.  I watched those turkeys peacefully walking among the stubble and feeding on corn until they wandered out of sight.  And I thought about the wild turkeys I saw some years ago and more recently, showing that they are established and reproducing in the more wooded parts of southeastern Pennsylvania.  But I must confess that I always see them by good fortune alone when I'm out for various reasons.
     Originally permanent resident forest birds, wild turkeys have adapted to a mix of woods and grain fields in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.  They eat acorns and other nuts in the woodlands and corn and other grains in the fields.  And their young, called poults, and adults, consume a variety of invertebrates, particularly grasshoppers, whenever they can in both habitats.
     Toward the end of September of 2016, I saw five magnificent Tom Turkeys walking together on the shoulder of a road in the wooded Welsh Mountains a mile south of New Holland, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  They probably were eating acorns and invertebrates.  I've also seen individual hen turkeys at times in the Welsh Mountains in recent years, always by dumb luck. 
     I have also seen a few hen turkeys at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Other observers have seen groups of wild turkeys in the fields and woods of Middle Creek as well because of the mix of excellent habitats managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for wildlife and wildlife hunting. 
     I accidentally came across a group of 18 beautiful wild turkeys of both genders in a harvested corn field planted to winter rye on a cold, windy January afternoon in 2010.  Apparently, the turkeys were already filled with corn kernels because they soon made their way casually to a nearby woodland to spend the night in trees.  I was fairly close to that bunch as I stayed in my car so as to not scare them away and noticed how truly big and majestic they are.
     One October afternoon about ten years ago, I saw a gathering of about 20 wild turkeys in an overgrown meadow surrounded by wood lots full of warmly-colored foliage.  Those handsome birds walked along slowly and scratched up seeds and invertebrates from the grass and recently-fallen, colored leaves.  As always at that time of year, the turkeys probably were adults of both genders and their grown young of the year.
     One time in April about 12 years ago, I saw 20 wild turkeys in a harvested corn field near a wood lot in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania as I was driving along on business.  The turkeys, of course, were peacefully feeding on corn kernels from the ground.                      
     And one late afternoon in April several years ago, I saw seven wild turkeys, that looked as big as eagles, soar into a woodland just below treetop level, one right after another, and land in trees in woods in southern Lancaster County.  Apparently, they were going to spend the night in those trees. 
     Soon the magnificent and stately Tom turkeys will be strutting, fanning their wings and tails and gobbling to attract females to themselves for mating.  Each hen will lay 12 to 14 eggs, one a day, in nests on the ground in woods where they incubate those eggs for about 28 days.  The youngsters hatch in May and are escorted by their mothers who brood them, teach them what to eat, and warn them of danger.  Never-the-less, turkey eggs ae eaten by striped skunks, opossums, raccoons and other critters.  Poults are preyed on by foxes, coyotes, hawks, black rat snakes and other predators.  The big, adult turkeys don't have many predators, except people, black bears and coyotes.
     Wild turkeys were re-introduced to southeastern Pennsylvania several years ago by the game commission and they have adapted well to less than forest conditions in this area.  Groups of wild turkeys are exciting to see anytime of year.  One has only to be in turkey habitats and wait and watch until these beautiful birds are spotted. 
       

Big Natural Events in Southeastern Pennsylvania

     At least ten big natural events make southeastern Pennsylvania intriguing through each year.  And these annual, exciting happenings are so overwhelming that anyone can enjoy them.
     A snow fall changes the whole landscape from green to white, often within minutes, making it a winter wonderland.  Snow can cover everything horizontal that is exposed to it, quickly creating a cold, white blanket on the ground and gray tree limbs.  Snow on the ground, however, insulates a variety of plant roots and small animals living in the soil, including moles, shrews, mice and a large variety of invertebrates, from deeper cold in the air.
     Many thousands of ring-billed gulls dominate landfills during winter.  Great, swirling clouds of ring-bills settle on the landfills like snowfalls to feed on anything edible.  And there the gulls are joined by flocks of starlings, and numerous American crows, fish crows, turkey vultures and black vultures, all of which pick through the daily delivered trash for tidbits.  Scavengers all, these birds have adapted well to rummaging through garbage to make a living, which has increased their populations because there is no need for any of them to starve to death in winter.
     Large, noisy flocks of migrant snow geese, Canada geese, tundra swans and a variety of ducks settle here for a few weeks in February and March each year and wait for spring to catch up to their restless urges to push north to their northern and western nesting territories.  Here the gatherings of geese, swans and some of the duck species feed in fields and rest on human-made impoundments, and make inspiring spectacles when flying in noisy flocks between fields and water, or the other way, to the enjoyment of birders and non-birders alike.  Other kinds of ducks dive under water from the surface to either feed on small fish or aquatic plants and invertebrates, depending on the species.
     Four kinds of wild plants, introduced here from Europe, have overwhelming multitudes of beautiful, yellow flowers in April and May.  These plants are, in arbitrary order of blooming, lesser celandines that grow in bottomland woods, field mustards in fields, dandelions on lawns, all in April, and buttercups in meadows in May.  All these alien plants are adaptable, hardy and practically everywhere in suitable habitats.  The abundance of flowers of each species turns their, otherwise green niches, yellow for a few weeks.
     The quickly growing leaves on deciduous trees and shrubbery in the warmth of late April and into early May suddenly changes the whole landscape in woods and suburbs from gray to green, literally almost overnight.  Last year's sugary sap lying in wait at the buds is the fuel for that rapid growth.  Suddenly there is shade where a few days ago there was none.  And suddenly there is shelter for wildlife where a few days ago there was none.
     Late in May each year and through summer, white clover flowers dominate many short-grass lawns with their millions of white blooms.  Whole lawns appear white in summer because of those blossoms.  And weekly mowing actually encourages the growth of new flowers all through summer.  As blooms are cut off, the plants respond by growing new ones.  Bees and other kinds of insects have a summer-long supply of nectar from white clover blooms because of mowing. 
     In June, every 17 years, swarms of seventeen year cicada grubs pour out of the soil of woodland floors, climb trees, squeeze out of the backs of their shells and emerge as winged adults.  Males then fly around and emit a buzzing drone from plates on their abdomens.  That monotonous droning, which may continue as much as a couple of weeks, is overwhelming, and almost deafening, because of the millions of cicadas in any one woodland.  And many people are really annoyed by that seemingly unending sound.  The cicadas eventually, mate, lay eggs and die, littering the ground with their dead bodies.  But another generation of 17 year cicadas has been started.
     Fireflies reach a peak of numbers and flashing their abdomens at dusk early in July of each year.  Soon after sunset, thousands of male fireflies climb grass stems and other vegetation from the grass roots where they spent each day and take off in slow, hovering flight while flashing their cold lights every few seconds in their searches for mates.  As darkness deepens, the lights of those flashing beetles is beautiful and charming, almost otherworldly, as if those insects are airborne fairies swinging their lit lanterns in the night.  If there was a sound with each flashing of the great multitudes of  tiny lights, it would be deafening.  Eventually, many male fireflies perch on trees, making those trees appear as if they are holiday trees with flashing decorative lights.  Multitudes of flashing firefly lanterns make July nights like intriguing fairy tales.
     The courting sounds of true katydids, snowy tree crickets and other kinds of katydids and tree crickets overwhelmingly dominate the dusk and into the night of woods and older suburban areas from late July through September.  Males of these grasshopper relatives make those mechanical chirps and trills by rubbing their wings together to attract females to themselves for mating.  Those stridulations are THEE wildlife fiddling music of late summer and fall nights.
     In October, locally, foliage on deciduous trees that abruptly changed the landscape early in May, change the green woods and suburbs again, to yellow, red and orange.  In fall when periods of daylight become shorter each succeeding day and average temperatures become cooler, deciduous trees shut off the water supply to their leaves, causing them to die.  And as the leaves die, so does their green chlorophyll, allowing the other colors in the leaves to be visible to us in a dominating shouting of warm colors that completely changes the look of forests and suburbs.  
     Every area has major natural events that are overwhelming and intriguing.  Each reader probably can find some big nature happenings to experience and enjoy.

Spring in Mid-February

     Spring is bursting forth early for mid-February in southeastern Pennsylvania because of the unusually warm weather we have had all winter and currently.  Periods of daylight each succeeding day in spring increases by about two minutes a day, which stirs life into "waking" from winter's dormancy.  The warmth adds to the promise of spring's coming; arrival really.
     Patches of snow drops and winter aconites in flower gardens and on lawns are in full bloom now.  The white blossoms of snow drops do resemble drops of snow, until they open and look like tiny bells, which seem to tinkle in the wind, with imagination.  Aconite blooms are yellow and cheery on lawns in February.
     Our two pussy willow bushes' furry catkins are already opening in the warmth, perhaps a week before they normally do.  Pussy willow catkins are one of the first sure signs of the vernal season on many peoples' lawns, along with snow drops and aconites.
     Already the dull-red and yellowish flowers of silver maple trees are blooming on floodplains and some peoples' yards where they were planted.  They are also about a week ahead of schedule.
     Sap is rising in all trees because of the warm temperatures of February afternoons and below-freezing temperatures at night.  That fluctuation of temperatures causes the cells in the cambium layers of trees to expand in the warmth and soak up sap from below and contract in the cold and squeeze the sap up the tree.  Day after day of up and down temperatures in spring pumps the sap up the trunks and out the limbs and twigs to the buds where that sugary sap will be the food for the growth of leaves, flowers and other tree parts each spring.  Some people collect the sweet sap of maple and birch trees and boil it down to syrup.
     There is a lot of activity in mid-February that leads to reproduction.  Pairs of mallard ducks and Canada geese look for secluded places on the ground near water to incubate clutches of eggs.  Goose pairs get quite loud and fierce in their battles with each other over nesting spots.  I saw two mink running about along the edge of a human-made impoundment in daylight, no doubt looking for mates.  Male woodcocks court at dusk in open areas near bottomland woods where they spend nights feeling with their long, flexible beaks for earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates in damp soil.  Each male woodcock stands and vocally "beeps" for about a minute that spirals up into the darkening sky, his wings whistling all the while.  At the zenith of his aerial climb, he sings, then drops to his beeping spot on the ground and starts all over.  And pairs of bald eagles already have clutches of eggs in their large, bulky cradles.
     A variety of male small birds, including mourning doves, northern cardinals, tufted titmice, house finches, song sparrows and others are continuing to sing on warmer days in February.  They lift many peoples' spirits with the promise of spring "right around the corner".
     Certain other kinds of birds are beginning their migrations to their nesting territories.  Purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds in noisy flocks of thousands, some of them containing both species, are already pouring into southeastern Pennsylvania from farther south.  Many apparently migrant ring-billed gulls are currently assembling on the Susquehanna River, prior to their moving to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to raise young.  Several kinds of ducks, particularly American wigeons, northern pintails, green-winged teal and ring-necked ducks, are on the move to their breeding grounds on the American and Canadian prairies.  But for now, those kinds of ducks can be spotted on most any impoundment at any time in the next few weeks, making early spring all the more interesting.  And thousands of tundra swans, and tens of thousands of snow geese are still gathering at Middle Creek wildlife Management Area prior to their trips north through Canada to the shores of the Arctic Ocean by the middle of May.  Those swans and snows arrived a few weeks early at Middle Creek this year because of the mild winter.  And, as always, they are causing quite a stir among birders and other people who enjoy experiencing them.                
     Early spring is always an interesting time to enjoy nature, partly because of the fickle weather at that time.  But mostly because of the hardy plants, birds and mammals that are already "coming to life" at that time of year, including mid to late February.  Snow and cold may still come our way in the next few weeks, but the promise of spring now can not be denied for long.

Early Spring Waterfowl at Middle Creek

     Every late winter and early spring, snow geese, tundra swans, Canada geese, common mergansers and black ducks, in that arbitrary order of abundance at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania, create great, noisy spectacles.  These species have the annual habit of settling at Middle Creek's 400 acre mitigated lake and other, smaller human-made impoundments to feed and wait for spring to catch up to their restless urges to migrate north to their nesting grounds.  They generally arrive at Middle Creek in abundance sometime in February, depending upon the weather and leave for destinations north sometime in March, again depending on the weather. 
     I went to Middle Creek four times this year between February 3 and February 14, for a couple of hours each trip, to see the great, annual congregation of waterfowl.  It was early this year because of a mild winter that made the birds restless earlier than usual.  Of all the waterfowl at Middle Creek, the ever-restless snow geese present the biggest, most exciting annual show.  Many tens of thousands of them always congregate in a dense, white "raft" on the back part of the main lake, making me think they are the same birds and their young each year.  Many times a seemingly endless parade of incoming flocks of snows join their relatives in that raft, making it larger and larger, and noisier and noisier with their constant honking.  The incoming snow geese could be coming back from feeding in harvested corn fields or winter rye fields, or are just arriving from farther south.  Each tight, airborne group of snows slides across the sky like a wave up a beach, circles the raft of snows on the water, or ice, on the lake a few times, then swings into the wind, with each bird's wings set like a parachute, and float gently down to the water, all without collision among their fellows.  Occasionally the whole raft of many thousands of snow geese lift from the water at once with a roar of beating wings and voices, like a sheet being lifted from a bed, in sequence, from one end to the other.  The background disappears behind that dense cloud of yelling snow geese, as it would behind a blizzard.  The geese circle the impoundment several times, then finally settle on it again.  And all that, amazingly, without collision with their flock mates.
     Tundra swans live and travel in small, loose groups of a half dozen birds to 20 or more.  But those big, elegant birds create beautiful spectacles, in the air, in harvested corn fields and rye fields, and on water, sometimes all that at once at Middle Creek, as elsewhere.  These majestic, white birds mingle well with the gray-brown Canada geese and the dark black ducks, making lovely gatherings of these kinds of waterfowl. 
     Tundra swans are called that because they, and snow geese, nest on the Arctic tundra of Canada and Alaska.  And these swans have a characteristic, melodious, whooping call that is pretty and heard from a bit of a distance. 
     The up to 5,000 migrant swans at Middle Creek mostly gather in a cove of the big lake, along the main road where they can be seen at close quarters.  But this species is also scattered all around that impoundment in pairs and little groups.  Like the snow geese, because these swans have the same habits at Middle Creek each year, I think they are the same birds and their young year after year.  The snows and swans are like old friends visiting as they travel.
     The familiar, permanent resident Canada geese, and their migrant relatives, in flocks of their own, are scattered across the main lake, other ponds and the land surrounding all those impoundments.  Like snows and swans, Canadas rest on water, but feed in corn fields and winter rye fields.  And, although Canada geese are common, everyday waterfowl in this area, I never tire of seeing their beauty and charm, or hearing their loud, bugling calls.
     Each winter and early spring, as long as the main lake is at least partly ice-free at Middle Creek, scores of common merganser ducks bob on the water and dive under it from the surface to catch small fish.  The fish that are left have more room and food to grow larger.
     Common mergansers are handsome ducks.  Drakes are white with dark backs and upper wings, with heads that shine green in the sunlight and red beaks shaped to catch small fish.  Hens have gray body feathering and brown heads, and each one has a crest that looks like a bad hair day.
     A few other kinds of ducks winter at Middle Creek, including a limited number each of mallards, gadwalls, ring-necked ducks and black ducks.  Black ducks are the most common of those duck species in winter and early spring.  Big and dark on water or ice, black ducks are readily noticeable from shores around Middle Creek's impoundments.  And black ducks join geese and swans in corn fields to shovel up waste corn kernels.
     Every winter and early spring, at least a few bald eagles and, sometimes, a golden eagle, inhabit
Middle Creek.  Those eagles are often spotted soaring majestically over the land and water.  Sometimes the eagles of both species harass the snow geese, which fly up at once in a great, deafening mass from the main lake.  Sometimes I see an eagle eating a snow goose, but I've never seen one kill a goose.
     Middle Creek is a place to see sensational hordes of geese and swans from sometime in February to some point of time in March.  They may stay at Middle Creek for a few weeks, daily feeding in nearby fields and resting on the 400 acre lake there.  But when spring catches up to their restless hormones, the snows and swans migrate to the Great lakes area, and then on through Canada, bit by bit, to the treeless Arctic tundra where they hatch young.  They arrive on the tundra around the middle of May, are already paired, begin to set on clutches of eggs by the end of that month and the fuzzy offspring hatch around the end of June.  The young grow quickly and by early October, both snows and swans,  and their young of the year, come south again to the Chesapeake Bay Region and farther south for the winter.  And late in winter, into early spring, they start to work their way north again, and arriving at Middle Creek for another year.                     

Snow Showers and Geese at Sunset

     Sunset occurred about 5:40 PM on February 15, 2017 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  And about 5:10 that evening I started out to do a few errands around my home in New Holland.  It was a wild and pretty evening.  The sky was partly clear, with gray and pink clouds and the wind was strong and cold.  The pink clouds were caused by the setting sun shining on them.
     As I drove along to my first destination, a snow squall of flurries pushed through where I was and I could see distant landscapes here and there turning white with falling snow.  I decided to keep up with the snow squall I was in and chased it about five miles southeast across farmland outside New Holland.  But because of the squall's speed, traffic and red lights, I failed to keep up with the snow flurries.  However, I did see the snowfall cross a mile of cropland, climb over wooded hills and disappear beyond those hills.  So I turned around, faced the setting sun and started west, back to New Holland.   
     The sky was still amazingly beautiful, with patches of different colored clouds in the blue sky.  The wind whipping along and the sunset continued to give the landscape a wild look.
     As I approached New Holland, I noticed a few straggled, silhouetted groups of Canada geese following each other across the sky and into the sunset.  Those geese were flying into the wind and struggling with every wing beat of the way.  I thought those geese had a destination in mind, so I followed them with my car to see what they were going to do.
     About 5: 25, I noticed the goose flocks suddenly began to circle a harvested cornfield just east of New Holland, so I pulled into a business parking lot just west of that field.  From there I could see the geese still circling the field, without my having to peer into the sunshine.
     The different gatherings of Canada geese caught up with each other over the field and the whole mass was still swirling over it as the birds watched for potential danger.  Then they began to descend, into the wind for flight control, to the field, many of them honking noisily all the while.  As the geese parachuted down, little by little, they resembled a feathered waterfall that ended in a lake of corn stubble.  I estimated there were 150 geese in that congregation of them.          
     As those Canadas were dropping to the field, I could see another, smaller group coming from the east.  I estimated this gathering had about 50 individuals in it.  They, too, circled the field a few times, bugling all the while, then came down to it on the same aerial highway as the first group did.  The 200 Canada geese made a dark streak across the beige corn stubble as the birds fed on corn kernels lying in the field from last autumn's harvest.
     Those noisy Canada geese helped make a wild, exciting scene in human-dominated New Holland.  But that excitement came from more than just the geese.  The striking sky, foreboding clouds, sunset, cold wind, snow squalls and the flocks of geese in that beautiful environment together created a thrilling, memorable evening that I was fortunate to experience.
     Readers can experience such beauty and wildness, too.  Just get out wherever you are and look around with nature in mind.  You are bound to have thrilling natural experiences, too.     

Wildlife at a Reservoir

     Today, February 13, 2017, I visited a reservoir in Chester County, Pennsylvania to see what wildlife was stirring.  When I first arrived at that mitigated lake, I saw several hundred Canada geese, as is often the case in winter and early spring on that lake, but no other wildlife.  But by looking closer with binoculars, I saw a small variety of water birds, including several common mergansers, and a few each of ring-necked ducks, mallard ducks and ring-billed gulls, all species leftover from winter.  And there was one female hooded merganser, as well.  But because of the strong wind, almost all the birds on the lake were huddled in the shallows against a shoreline protected from the wind by a wooded slope.  The open part of the lake, on the other hand, was rough with wavelets and white caps, but the water under the influence of that hill was calm, giving the water birds the peace they needed for rest and sleep.
      I don't think any of those birds were suffering from the cold of the wind because they all have dense layers of water and wind-proof feathering that keeps them dry and warm.  These species often rest on ice and cold water on open impoundments when the wind is moderate. 
     As I watched those water birds through my field glasses, I noticed that the male common mergansers' heads were a bright, iridescent green in the sunlight of this partly sunny day.  And their mostly white bodies, green heads and red beaks together made them quite striking.  Female common mergansers, on the other hand, have pale-gray feathering on their bodies and brownish heads, each one of which has a crest like a bad hair day.  The mergansers dove under water from the surface to catch small fish in  the impoundment.
     Startlingly, as I watched the water birds along the quiet shoreline, I noticed a mink, possibly a male, running along the ground at the edge of the water on the far side of the lake from where I was.  His movements were quick and within seconds he disappeared in the undergrowth of the woods.  A half hour later, I saw another, smaller, more slender mink, probably a female, running along the shore on my side of the impoundment.  She was there one second and gone the next. 
     I have seen mink in southeastern Pennsylvania before, but not two in one day.  Mid-February is the start of their breeding season, so many mink throw caution to the wind in their search for a mate, even in the day, which, today, was thrilling to me.
     Moving around the lake, I came to a field with a woods behind it to the north.  A red-tailed hawk was perched in a tree on the south edge of that woodland and watched the field for mice to catch and eat.  What was most interesting about that hawk was its facing south in its quest for food.  The sun was shining on that raptor's belly, warming it, and the bird was protected from the cold, north wind by the woods behind it; a perfect hunting spot for that cold, windy day.      
     Moving along again, I came to a large flock of a few thousand purple grackles on a harvested cornfield where those many birds were eating waste kernels of corn on the ground, and anything else edible.  I first noticed that great gathering of grackles because the middle of that beige field looked black in its middle, indicating a swarm of blackbirds of some species on the ground.  Watching with binoculars, I saw the grackles' purple sheen on their black plumage, their walking about in search of food and their constantly taking to the air, flying a short distance over the field and landing on it again.  Evidently, they cleaned edibles out of one field and moved to another, and another.  This they do all day, every day, wherever they are all through autumn and winter, and into early spring.
     I had an interesting field trip today, as I often do.  I saw some birds using protection from the wind.  I noticed a couple of love-struck mink on the prowl for mates and a bit of spring in the form of the grackles.  Readers can do the same.  Just get outside and look around at all times of year.        
        

Beginning of Spring

     To me, spring begins in southeastern Pennsylvania sometime during the first couple of weeks in February.  This year it started on February 6.  I base those observations on the growth of specific plants and the activities of certain kinds of birds and mammals.
     But spring, in a way, begins even earlier than that.  Each pair of great horned owls in this area begin their courtship and twilight hooting to each other during December, climaxing with egg-laying sometime in January.  Red-tailed hawks and bald eagles start their courtships in January, with egg-laying by the middle of February.  And in January, red foxes search day and night for mates.  This is the best time of the year to see them during the day.
     And, starting in mid-January, the periods of daylight get noticeably longer by two minutes each succeeding day.  Birds register that increase in daylight in their brains, which stirs their hormones.  Certain kinds of ducks, geese and swans, and blackbirds, start migrating in February, though they don't get far at first because of winter conditions farther north. 
     By early February, clusters of skunk cabbage hoods, each one of which harbors a fleshy ball with several tiny flowers on it, emerge from mud or inch-deep water on wooded bottomlands.  Those hoods create a bit of heat that help push them through ice and snow.
     Early in February, many snowdrop plants are in bloom.  Each plant has grass-like leaves, and tiny, white blooms that do resemble drops of snow.  However, when mature and open, those blossoms look like small bells.  One can almost hear them tinkle in the breeze.
     By mid-February, multitudes of winter aconite plants have cheery, yellow blooms on lawns, flower gardens, or wherever else they spread to by bulbs and seeds.  Each plant has a single blossom and a fringe of tiny leaves below it. 
     On warm afternoons in February, males of a few kinds of permanent resident, local birds respond to their raging hormones by singing cheerily.  Mourning doves, northern cardinals, tufted titmice and song sparrows sing lustfully on lawns and along forest edges.  It's always a joy to me to hear these songsters' beautiful ditties after a winter of no bird song. 
     By late February, secretive, isolated pairs of Canada geese and mallard ducks are seen looking for nesting sites.  Sometime in early March, females of each species are beginning to lay clutches of eggs in grassy, sheltered places on the ground near water.  By the third week in March, those clutches are complete and incubation commences, even if there is snow on the ground.  And by the third week in April, and a little later, the cute, fluffy goslings and ducklings hatch and are ready to walk, swim and eat within 24 hours of hatching.  
     During February, raccoons, skunks and muskrats start their courtships.  At this time, one can see an occasional coon, skunk or muskrat about in daylight searching for a mate, though all these mammals are usually nocturnal.  And at this time of year, some of these mammals, probably males, mostly, are killed on roads because of their traveling over unfamiliar areas in search of mates, but only finding death.
     The elaborate and intriguing courtship rituals of male American woodcocks start on mild evenings in February, just after sunset.  Woodcocks live in secondary woods on bottomlands where they poke their long beaks into mud to extract and eat earthworms and other invertebrates.  At dusk from about mid-February to the end of April, each male woodcock flies out of a bottomland thicket to a bare spot in the ground of a nearby opening, such as a field bordering a woods.  There each male stands upright with his long bill on his chest and vocally "beeps" for about a minute.  Then he takes off in spiral flight upward, his wings twittering rhythmically all the way.  At the height of his climb, he levels off and sings verbally for a few seconds, then plunges to the bare spot on the ground.  He repeats that performance several times an evening until hunger or an interested female woodcock interrupts him.
     Though I say spring starts the second week in February, I know snow and cold can still prevail at times.  But spring has its way, too.  To me, spring is born from the chilly womb of winter and winter and spring constantly push against each other.  Some days in February winter wins and other days spring does.  But life slowly moves toward spring all that while until that wonderful season is undeniable by everyone.       

Tree-dotted Meadows

     For about two hours a day, a couple of mild days in late January, 2017, I visited two meadows in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, pastures that are about a half-mile apart, to see what wildlife was moving about, as I have done in these pastures, occasionally, in the past.  Each pasture is bisected by the same creek, and each is bordered on one side by a deciduous woodlot and on the other sides by fields.  Each meadow is carpeted by short grass and dotted by several tall, floodplain trees of various kinds, including sycamores, pin oaks, river birches, shag-bark hickories and red maples.  And in January, 2017, both pastures had a few puddles from recent rains, and no snow cover at all because of a mild winter so far.
     As I approached the first pasture, I saw two pairs of beautifully feathered mallard ducks shoveling vegetation and invertebrates from a large, shallow puddle.  And a killdeer plover walked slowly on the edge of that temporary pool and watched for invertebrates. 
     A few eastern bluebirds were perched, hump-backed, low in the trees.  Every minute, or so, one or another bluebird dropped to the short grass in the meadow to pick up an invertebrate, then fly back to its twig perch to eat its victim.
     I also saw a song sparrow and a winter wren on the shores of a brook in that meadow.  Both birds are brown, which blends them into the mud and stones of the little waterways' banks where they both creep about to capture invertebrates to ingest.  The sparrow also consumes a variety of weed and grass seeds in winter as well.
     The second of these meadows is a bit bigger than the first one, and has more trees, including a couple of tall, dead ones.  Another small group of bluebirds were perched on low twigs and regularly dropped to the ground to catch invertebrates.    
     About that same time, I saw a white-breasted nuthatch and a brown creeper hitching up and down tree trunks in search of invertebrates nestled into the relative safety of tree bark crevices.  The nuthatch was walking up-side-down on the vertical trunk, something only nuthatches can do. 
     And I saw a downy woodpecker and a red bellied woodpecker perched upright on different tree limbs and chipping into dead wood after tunneling invertebrates.  Their stiff tail feathers help hold them upright as they move up trees.  And they push their long, sticky tongues into insect tunnels after they chipped into them with their strong, chisel-like beaks.  Their tongues mop up those invertebrates and the woodpeckers pull them back into their bills to swallow that food.
     A few blue jays hopped across the pasture's short grass, perhaps in search of pin oak acorns they missed earlier.  Blue jays are always striking in their blue feathering with black and white trim.
     A pair of northern cardinals and a song sparrow lurked about in a thicket of shrubs and vines in the second pasture.  The red male cardinal stood out like a flame in the thicket.  Both permanent residents, the cardinals and song sparrow eat berries and grass and weed seeds during winter.
     I saw a couple of gray squirrels in a big sycamore tree with at least a few hollows in it where wind had broken off branches.  Those squirrels had better beware because I saw a pair of red-tailed hawks soaring over the meadow and its bordering woods.  Those hawks probably were a mated pair because January is the start of the red-tail breeding season and they probably have a nest in the pasture or the nearby woodland.
     I saw a red-headed woodpecker propped upright on a tall, dead, still-standing tree in the meadow.  I've seen red-heads in this pasture before, but it's always neat to see them anytime, anywhere because they are not common in this area.  Red-heads are striking with totally red heads, white underparts and black wings.
     By luck, I noticed a red phase screech owl sleeping in a cavity in a river birch tree.  I didn't see the owl with my eyes alone, but thought there was something strange about the hollow in the birch.  By looking at that hole in the tree, I immediately was thrilled to see the little owl perched in it resting up for its coming nightly hunt for mice.
     And for the last few years, there has been about a dozen New Hampshire red chickens, including one magnificent rooster, living in a little, wooden chicken house in the second meadow.  These chickens are free to roam around the meadow in search of invertebrates, seeds and vegetable food, much of which they scratch out of the ground.  They drink from the creek or from puddles on the pasture floor.  They usually stay somewhat together for safety sake and act much like their relatives, the wild turkeys and ring-necked pheasants, do.              
     These meadows are packed with wildlife.  I didn't see all species that live in them in the little bit of time I spent in them.  All habitats, natural or human-made, have more wildlife in them than we could know with just fleeting glances. 

Wildlife Along Meandering Streams

     Many waterways throughout the world meander across the landscape, winding (turning) here and there along the way.  The faster-moving water on the outside of the curves washes away some of the waterways' bordering soil, creating tall, 90 degree-angled stream banks.  But the slower water on the inside of each bend in waterways dumps mud and gravel from upstream, which builds up mud flats and gravel bars.  A small variety of wildlife here in southeastern Pennsylvania takes advantage of the turns in smaller, inland waterways to find food and shelter.  They are examples of life throughout the Earth doing the same.
     Individual pairs of belted kingfishers and individual muskrats dig protective burrows into tall stream banks, the kingfishers near the tops of them and the muskrats at the normal water level.  Kingfishers use their deep tunnels to raise young, feeding them crayfish, small fish, tadpoles, aquatic insects and other little, water creatures.
     Some abandoned kingfisher holes in stream banks are used by pairs of rough-winged swallows for rearing offspring, though they are perfectly capable of digging their own little burrows in stream banks when they have to.  Like all swallows, rough-wings fly about catching small, flying insects, which they also feed to their youngsters. 
     Muskrats dig tunnels at the streams' water levels, then up to a den just under the grass roots level to be above most water levels.  There they live, safe from most predators; and there females raise litters of young.  Mink, which are a kind of weasel, enter muskrat burrows, kill the occupant, or occupants, and live in the dens themselves.  And there female mink raise young.
     Mud flats and gravel bars created on the inside of the bends in waterways because of a slower current are places where a couple of kinds of birds hatch babies and where a limited variety of wildlife search for food.  Killdeer plovers and spotted sandpipers, both species of inland shorebirds, lay four eggs per brood on gravel bars.  Though those eggs are exposed, they and their brooding parents and resulting precocious chicks are well camouflaged on the gravel.  Killdeer and sandpiper families also roam the gravel bars and mud flats in their search for invertebrates to eat.
     Other kinds of critters also use gravel bars and flats on the inside of stream curves in meadows to watch for edibles.  Late in summer, little groups of migrant least sandpipers, and individual solitary sandpipers and lesser yellowlegs, walk over the flats in their quest for invertebrates.  Song sparrows do that through the year.  At times, a small variety of herons, including great blue, green and black-crowned night herons, and great egrets stalk fish and frogs in shallow water just off the gravel bars and mud flats.  A few each of Wilson's snipe and American pipits also feed on invertebrates from streamside mud flats, but not in summer because they breed farther north.  And raccoons and mink use the flats at night to get prey animals, including fish, frogs, crayfish, fresh-water clams and other edibles on the flats and in bordering shallows.
     A couple other kinds of birds use stream banks and gravel bars in woodlands.  The camouflaged Louisiana waterthrushes raise young on ledges in the soil of streambanks.  These warblers catch invertebrates from under stones on the edges of woodland streams and brooks.  They feed those same foods to their young in their streamside nurseries.
     Winter wrens winter along small waterways in the woods.  There they prowl the water's edge like feathered mice in search of tiny invertebrates kept active by the flow of water.  These wrens blend in well with the dead leaf carpets, logs and brush piles on forest floors, places where they also hunt for invertebrates to eat.
     These are a few examples of life adapting to every niche, natural or human-made, on Earth.  It's no wonder there are so many different species thriving on this planet.  And to be adaptable is to survive.    
    

Humans Benefit Wildlife

     Many kinds of wildlife benefit from human-made habitats, practices and materials.  For a couple of hours in the early afternoon of January 30, 2017, I drove and walked along a few country roads through a bit of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland in search of whatever was visible in nature.  I was stopped by a mixed flock of about 30 turkey vultures and black vultures rising from the crest of a harvested cornfield that was near a long chicken house.  The turkey vultures soared gracefully and effortlessly, as they always do.  But the black vultures soared briefly, flapped their wings rapidly as if in a panic, then sailed again, as is their way.  Although I didn't see the dead bodies because of the hill in that field, I assumed the vultures were eating deceased and discarded chickens in that field, which their kinds always do.  And later that day, I learned in discussion with a local man that sometimes several magnificent bald eagles also scavenge dead chickens in that field on a chicken farm.
     Dead chickens, caste away in fields to be rid of them, are big business to a variety of scavenging critters in Lancaster County cropland, particularly in winter.  Two kinds of vultures, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, American crows, red foxes, raccoons and other species benefit from those discarded farm birds.
     As I watched the elegant turkey vultures and amusing black vultures in flight, I couldn't help but notice a group of about a dozen rock pigeons powering, and wheeling several times across the sky and eventually settling on the harvested corn field, not to ingest dead chickens, but rather to consume waste corn kernels on the ground.  These attractive pigeons, and many of their kin throughout the world, are wild birds on their own.  Wild pigeons in Lancaster County cropland get food of grain and seeds from farm fields, gather to rest on top of silos where they are relatively safe during days, and roost at night, and raise young, in several broods of two per clutch through the warmer months, in barns and under bridges.
     Rock pigeons originally nested on Mediterranean Sea cliffs, which is why these birds are, traditionally, gray.  Europeans domesticated those wild birds for meat and eggs and European  colonists brought pigeons to North America when they came here to live and farm.  Some of those feathered transplants escaped captivity and have been a wild species since.
     As I watched the vultures and pigeons, I saw an American kestrel perched on a roadside wire about 50 yards down the road.  Looking at that little falcon with 16 power binoculars, I noticed it was holding a dead field mouse in one powerful foot and tearing off chunks of mouse meat with its sharp, curved beak.  The roadside wires and the kestrel were above a hundred-yard-long, seven-foot-tall bank of soil that was riddled with several mouse holes and a few wood chuck burrows.  A harvested corn field planted to winter rye extended back from the top of that roadside bank, a field where the mice could get corn kernels to eat. 
     Although the chucks probably were still sleeping down their tunnels when I was along that stretch of rural road, the mice would have been active and searching for food, mostly at night, though during the day as well, which is why the kestrel caught at least one of them. 
     Field mice use roadside banks to live because the vegetation on them is sometimes mowed, but not plowed, allowing these little rodents to become established on the banks.  And the kestrel used the wires above the bank as a perch to watch for mice. 
     The rodents ate corn and some of those mice were caught and ingested by the little raptor.  This is another example of a roadside food chain.
     Driving about a half mile down the road from the vultures and kestrel, I saw a chubby muskrat run a short distance across a winter rye field, scramble into a watery, roadside ditch and disappear into a concrete pipe under the road I was on.  I suspect the muskrat lives in that pipe under the road, which is a substitute for the tunnels they dig into stream banks at the normal water level, then up to just under the grass roots level.  I remembered a few years ago, one late afternoon early in February, seeing a big, male raccoon enter a female coon's home in a larger pipe under another country road.
And I recalled seeing a striped skunk emerging at dusk from a drainage pipe under a street in a small town where I once lived. 
     Many kinds of creatures live in human-made constructions that shelter them in built habitats, if those species of wildlife are adaptable, and most of them are.  These species take advantage of and benefit from the habitats, materials and practices we create and use to serve ourselves.  The above examples are just a few from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  There are innumerable others throughout the world.