Farmland is a tough environment for wild creatures to live in because of annual plowing, discing, harvesting, spraying herbicides and spraying insecticides. But in spite of that, many wild critters live in abundance in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania cropland, including several kinds of invertebrates. And, although they live in the fields, those invertebrates are seen by most people on rural roads and roadsides.
Night crawlers, which are a kind of earthworms, slide across wet, country roads by the thousands during or after heavy or prolonged rains, mostly at night during warmer times of the year. Maybe they are looking for new food sources or mates, but some of them only find death, crushed under the wheels of vehicles. I know it's hard to avoid them all when they are all over the roads.
Opossums, striped skunks, American toads, a few kinds of frogs and other species of nocturnal animals eat many of those worms off the roads and roadsides at night, as well as in the fields. And American crows, American robins, purple grackles and other species of birds eat many worm casualties off the roads during the day. Obviously, night crawlers are beneficial to several adaptable types of farm country wildlife.
Many, many thousands of male fireflies are at the peak of flashing their cold, abdominal lights by early July. Each evening at dusk, those fireflies crawl up plants, launch themselves into the air and blink their yellow signals every few seconds to female fireflies still in the depths of vegetation. The air and darkening landscape become ever more alive with flashing, little lights, making the pragmatic fields beautiful and enchanting. If each tiny, firefly lantern made a sound when it blinked, the uproar of lights would be deafening. Female fireflies in the vegetation signal back to the airborne males and the genders eventually unite to mate.
And at dusk, thousands upon thousands of little, brown moths (species unknown) rise from vegetated roadsides and fields and flutter about, probably to look for mates. Many of them, and some of the fireflies, get hit by vehicles on country roads. Though these moths are mostly unidentified, they are interesting to see in the forward-sweeping lights of vehicles. They are another interesting form of life in the darkening cropland.
Cabbage white butterflies and yellow sulpher butterflies by the many thousands visit the numerous pink flowers of red clover and the abundant lavender blossoms of alfalfa in summer hay fields and along roadsides to sip the sugary nectar of those lovely blooms. These two kinds of butterflies, and other species, are obliged to move from hay field to hay field through each summer, as some hay is cut for farm animal feed while other clover and alfalfa mature and grow blossoms.
These two kinds of butterflies, originally from Eurasia, build up their numbers through a few succeeding generations during each summer until they reach a peak of abundance by late summer into autumn when the hay fields are fluttering and shimmering with white and gold wings among the pink and lavender flowers. Those hay fields then are interesting and inspiring to see.
Many field crickets, and grasshoppers of at least a few kinds, including red-legged and differential grasshoppers, live in fields and along weedy, rural roadsides where they eat grass and other kinds of vegetation. The big, dull-green differential grasshoppers are the most common and noticeable species of their high-jumping clan along country roads. Some of them leap onto the blacktop where some of those adventurers get crushed by passing cars and trucks. Skunks, red foxes, short-tailed shrews, American toads, screech owls, garden spiders and other nocturnal critters eat some of the farmland crickets and grasshoppers at night. And American kestrels, wild turkeys, purple grackles and other kinds of birds consume some crickets and grasshoppers during the day.
Through much of crisp, golden and red October, many woolly bear caterpillars, which are the larvae of the small, yellow-brown Isabella moths, cross country roads by the hundreds. Those caterpillars are covered with shiny, black bristles at both ends and rusty-orange ones in their middles, making them quite handsome little critters. Many people like to look for them along roadsides on sunny, warm afternoons in autumn.
Those woolly bears spent part of the summer eating grass and a variety of other open country plants. But, spurred by cold nights in October, they move about on warm afternoons to find shelter where they will pass the coming winter in relative safety. Some of them cross rural roads, where, unfortunately, some of those pretty, little caterpillars are crushed by passing vehicles.
Though not always easy to spot, look for these abundant invertebrates in farmland. They are just as interesting as any other species of life, anywhere. And all of them have their place in the overall scheme of nature.
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