A Beautiful October Meadow

     For two hours on the afternoon of October 4 of this year, I stopped at a pretty, bottomland meadow bordering a deciduous woodlot in lovely, peaceful farmland in Chester County, Pennsylvania to experience what wildlife was active.  That part of the cow pasture was studded with a few each of red maple, pin oak and white oak trees, all of which flourish best in the constantly moist soil of bottomlands.  That peaceful meadow obviously was carved from the original woodland that was there, and I noticed that some of the red maple leaves had already turned red, adding their beauty to that of the pasture on a sunny day under a blue sky.   
     A few blue jays, a couple of gray squirrels and an eastern chipmunk were all active visiting a couple of pin oaks in the pasture to gather acorns to store for winter food.  The jays were beautiful flying in and out of the oaks several times while I watched them, each one carrying an acorn in its beak on the way out.  Jays store acorns and other foods in tree cavities and holes they poke into the ground with their strong beaks.   
     The squirrels scurried here and there under the pin oaks, presumably gathering acorns that fell to the ground.  They seemed to resent each other's presence as they chased each other away from the acorns on the ground. 
     Gray squirrels also stash nuts and seeds in tree hollows and depressions they dig into the soil with their front paws.  Then, like the jays, they dig out that food through the winter.
     The chipmunk was also busily collecting pin oak acorns in its two cheek pouches to carry back to its burrow in the ground.  Down the tunnel, the chippy pushed the acorns out of its pouches and hustled back to the pin oaks to gather more acorns.  Chipmunks, squirrels and jays gather acorns and other foods much of each October day for several days until each animal decides it has enough, or the food supplies are exhausted.  And their scrambling about to gather food is dangerous because they expose themselves to hawks and other predators.
     A few patches each of thorny barberry and multiflora rose bushes, both kinds of bushes loaded with red berries, are under the scattered trees in the pasture.  They sprouted from seeds sown in that human-made, partly-sunny habitat by birds perched in the trees and digesting the pulp of berries they ate, but passing the seeds of those berries in their droppings.  Both species of shrubbery, incidentally, are originally from Asia. 
     A few each of American robins and eastern bluebirds were ingesting some of those berries while I was there, and other bird species, including a northern mockingbird, cedar waxwings and starlings will consume many of those berries during the coming winter.  Those birds will spread more seeds in their droppings across the countryside.
     Interestingly, I saw three species of medium-sized woodpeckers among the trees in that meadow, a pair of red-bellied, two red-headed and one northern flicker.  And they were all there because they are adapted to woodlots and tree-studded pastures in farmland.
     Red-bellied woodpeckers are abundant in southeastern Pennsylvania because of their adapting to woodlots and older suburban areas with their maturing trees.  That pair of red-bellies was in the pasture trees partly because of the bordering woodlot.  Red-bellies typically get some of their invertebrate food by chipping into dead limbs on live trees, which this meadow has.
     I saw one adult red-headed woodpecker on a dead limb in the pasture and one young red-head on the trunk of a live tree in the meadow.  I assume they are part of a family of red-heads that hatched in the pasture in the past summer a few months ago.  Of all woodpecker species in the eastern United States, red-heads are most adapted to cow pastures with some large, live trees and a few big, dead trees.  They raise young in hollows they chip out of the upper limbs of dead trees in meadows.    
     The adult red-head had a totally red head, but the head of the youngster was brown for better blending into its habitat.  Red-heads eat invertebrates from dead trees, in the air and on the ground.  They also consume a lot of acorns, seeds and berries when those foods are available.
     Northern flickers are adapted to pastures because they get much of their food of ants from ant hills in the soil.  Flickers are even brownish for the most part to blend into their ground level environment while getting food.
     These three kinds of woodpeckers in one place might be in competition with each other for food and nesting sites, but maybe not.  They have habits and habitats different enough to spread them into niches of their own, free from rivalry from their relatives.         
     White asters with an abundance of small, white flowers, other asters with pale-lavender blossoms, tall goldenrod plants that have clusters of yellow blooms and smartweeds with tight, pink flowers were all in bloom in the meadow.  And the many white aster flowers were buzzing and fluttering with bumble bees, honey bees, cabbage white butterflies, yellow sulphur butterflies, lots of small, skipper butterflies and two south-bound monarch butterflies.  All those insects were visiting the blooms to sip energy-giving nectar.  And the blossoms and insects added much beauty and interest to the pasture they were in.
     This quiet, lovely, tree-dotted meadow, and many others here in southeastern Pennsylvania, have beauties the year around, including in autumn.  They are well worth visiting for enjoyment and inspiration.