Window to the River

     On May 27, 2017, I pulled off a country road at a "window" in the foliage of trees and shrubbery where I could see a small part of the Conestoga River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  I was only at that window for an hour, but it was an interesting one.
     While waiting for birds and other animals to appear, I admired the lush-green of ash-leafed maple, silver maple, sycamore and black walnut trees, Virginia creeper and poison ivy vines, stinging nettles and other common, bottomland plants.  I also enjoyed the beautiful and abundant flowers of honeysuckle vines and multiflora rose bushes. 
     Within a few minutes I saw a spotted sandpiper bobbing and dancing over a group of rocks near the river's shore as it looked for invertebrates to eat.  Spotties hatch young along inland waterways and impoundments throughout much of North America.  And their bouncing as they walk is a form of camouflage resembling debris bobbing in the current along the water's edge. 
     A few purple grackles walked along the river's muddy shoreline in their search for invertebrates.  A gray catbird emerged from shrubbery to bathe in a shallow, shoreline puddle.  A female Baltimore oriole gathered nesting material for her deep-pouch nursery that she will attach to tree twigs extending over the river.  And I heard a red-bellied woodpecker calling from some of the tall trees that line the river on both sides.  
     But the most interesting part of that hour along the Conestoga was several light-green, adult May flies rising from the edges of the water.  Each one flew up and to the left slowly, but steadily, then disappeared behind tree foliage. 
     Local May flies start life in waterways from narrow brooks to the mile-wide Susquehanna River.  Each naiad is brown, which camouflages it on stream bottoms, is up to half an inch long, and flat so it doesn't get swept away in the current and can squeeze between rocks on the bottom where it consumes alga, tiny animals and detritus.  That May fly larva also is relatively safe from Johnny darter fish, crayfish and other predators lurking on the bottoms of waterways.  But some may fly larvae are eaten in spite of all their protections. 
     After about a year living under rocks on stream bottoms, May fly larvae mature, grow four clear wings and leave the water, often in great swarms at once that quickly become airborne.  They only live a few hours to a couple of days and don't ingest anything as adults.  Their only job is to mate and lay eggs back in the waterways they came from. 
     Multitudes of May flies come together in mid-air swarms over the waterways they emerged from.  Each male grabs a female and copulates with her, then dies.  Each fertilized female spawns eggs on the water's surface, then dies.
     Many May flies get eaten by rough-winged, barn and tree swallows, purple martins, wood pewees and other kinds of flycatchers, cedar waxwings, and bats at night.  Some of the May flies I saw on May 27 were consumed by a few each of rough-winged swallows and cedar waxwings.  And I remember years ago a May fly flew by me as I stood on a small bridge over a stream.  When that insect was a foot away from my face, it suddenly disappeared in a blur!  A split second later I saw that blur was a barn swallow.
     The rough-wings and waxwings were along the Conestoga because the swallows dig nesting burrows in the loose soil of stream banks and waxwings build twig cradles on tree twigs along waterways in farmland.  Rough-wings catch small insects while cruising over waterways until their beaks are full.  Waxwings, however, snare one insect at a time.
     I looked through that "window" to the Conestoga for only an hour, but that hour was interesting.  Readers can do the same, almost anywhere, anytime.