Wildlife Along Highways

     More wildlife lives along the shoulders and cloverleafs of expressways and highways than most of us realize.  One has only to ride along one or more of those byways, anytime of year, and watch for wild creatures there to know what kinds and how many interesting critters there are along those heavily traveled roads.  I have done that many times over the years, most recently on the Route 30 expressway between Lancaster and York on March five of this year and a few days later on Route 23, a highway that goes through New Holland.  Both localities are in southeastern Pennsylvania, but represent highways across at least the eastern United States. 
     Route 30 between Lancaster and York has deep shoulders completely covered by vegetation that is mowed at times, except the trees, both planted and volunteers, but never plowed or cultivated, allowing plants to produce berries or seeds, some of which becomes wildlife food.  Field mice and a limited variety of small birds inhabit that vegetation at least some part of their lives, and some of them fall prey to a variety of bird and mammal predators, including red foxes, striped skunks, certain kinds of hawks and owls and other species.
     On March 5, while traveling along Route 30, I saw several creatures I have often seen along expressways in southeastern Pennsylvania in winter.  Honking flocks of Canada geese regularly land on grassy expressway shoulders and cloverleafs to pluck and consume green blades of grass, as do sheep and goats.  And some pairs of Canada geese hatch goslings in certain cloverleafs containing water-filled pools, grass, cattails, black willow trees and other wetland plants, all of which make the geese feel at home.  Muskrats live permanently in some marshy cloverleafs and pairs of red-winged blackbirds and song sparrows raise young in many of them as well, the red-wings among cattails and the sparrows in shrubbery.  
     I saw a few flocks of starlings scattered along Route 30 on March five, two of them lined up on roadside wires resting and digesting between feeding forays and one in a cloverleaf poking through the grass with their sharp beaks for invertebrates, seeds and anything else edible.  Groups of starlings often feed along highways through the year.  This species of birds is highly adaptable and can take advantage of most any situation to its benefit.
     Occasionally in spring, I'll see a gathering of American robins, here and there, on short-grass shoulders along expressways and highways.  There they watch and listen for earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates of the grassroots level that they can feed on.  Robins also eat berries and fruits from trees and bushes along roadside shoulders.
     On March 5, while going from Lancaster to York on Route 30, I was thrilled to count 10 red-tailed hawks and two American kestrels perched in trees on the shoulders along 20 miles of that expressway.  Those hawks know that many field mice live in the dense vegetation along both sides of that highway and they regularly assemble there for fairly easy pickings.  Both species of raptors have watched for mice along that expressway, and others in southeastern Pennsylvania, every winter for many years, sometimes in higher numbers than I saw on March five.
     On that day I saw two wood chucks moving about the grassy shoulders of Route 30 and eating grass and other vegetation.  At this time of year male chucks are also looking for mates.
     Wood chucks dig deep tunnels into the ground where they spend nights and sleep through the bulk of winter.  And because of the lack of plowing on roadside shoulders and cloverleafs, their burrows are not disturbed or destroyed.  Abandoned chuck holes are used by other mammals, including red foxes, skunks, cottontail rabbits and others.
     Although I didn't see any on March fifth, I often see a few white-tailed deer and an occasional cottontail rabbit on the shoulders of local expressways and highways grazing on grass and nibbling woody vegetation.  But because the fur of these two herbivore mammals is brown they are hard to see among the vegetation until they come out onto short grass to consume it.  And, I must say, it is amazing where the adaptable deer and rabbits are in southeastern Pennsylvania.
     I also noted a few groups each of turkey vultures, black vultures, American crows, rock pigeons and mourning doves in flight over Route 30 and fields bordering it.  However, both kinds of vultures and the crows land along highway edges and shoulders to scavenge dead animals, such as deer, raccoons and other species of road-killed birds and mammals.  The pigeons and doves eat seeds and grain in nearby fields, but come to roadsides to ingest tiny stones to help grind those seeds in their stomachs. 
     I saw large flocks of ring-billed gulls where Route 30 crosses the Susquehanna River, and smaller groups of them in parking lots along that highway east of York.  I think ring-bills were in big numbers on the river because they are starting to migrate north to the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River and other parts of Canada where they raise young.   
     Gulls are devout scavengers of most anything edible and they evolved along the empty reaches of beaches, so parking lots are a familiar open space to them.  And ring-bills, many years ago, adapted to wintering inland, such as up the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers in southeastern Pennsylvania.
     Driving home along Route 23 a few miles east of New Holland, I saw a large "river" of ring-billed gulls flying over that highway from one field to another to feed on earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates.  Up to that time, I had not seen many birds along that road, so I was happy to see so many gulls in one bunch.
     About a mile down Route 23 a few minutes later, I saw a black horde of thousands of purple grackles gathering in tall trees in a village.  They probably had been feeding on invertebrates and grain in fields and landed in those trees to rest and digest before feeding again.  There presence in such big numbers told of spring migrations.
     Another mile down the same road, I saw a turkey vulture and an adult red-tailed hawk together on the shoulder of that highway.  I stopped on the opposite shoulder, a small distance from the birds, and saw through my binoculars that the red-tail was eating a dead striped skunk that probably was hit by a vehicle on the road.  The poor vulture was standing by, waiting its turn.  Obviously, the hawk was higher on the pecking order of the two birds.  But, apparently, the hawk couldn't tolerate my presence and flew away.  Immediately, the vulture started tearing at the carcass with its beak.  But that vulture was soon attacked by two others of its kind when the hawk took off.  There was a lot of wing-flapping and pecking at each other until only one turkey vulture again attended the dead skunk. 
     Several kinds of plants and animals live along expressway and highway shoulders and cloverleafs, making them interesting wildlife habitats.  So keep "an eye out" when riding along them to keep from getting bored on the trip.