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.