Wintering Brookside Birds

     After a snowfall of a few inches to several inches on the ground in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, as elsewhere, a few kinds of small, wintering birds go to flowing, tinkling brooks, rivulets and seepages in open, sunny cow pastures to find food.  The clear, running water keeps the narrow edges of those tiny, tumbling waterways free of ice and snow, allowing those little birds access to aquatic invertebrates in the mud and shallows of those shorelines.
     Wilson's snipe, killdeer plovers, American pipits and song sparrows are the unrelated species of little birds most likely to frequent the muddy borders of brooks, rivulets and seepages after a snowfall to acquire invertebrates to eat.  All these birds are brown on top, which blends them into their winter habitats of bare ground and mud, making them difficult to spot, especially when they are still.
     Wilson's snipe winter exclusively along those tiny waterways.  They are a kind of inland sandpiper that uses its long beak to probe the mud under inch-deep water to capture invertebrates.  And while these handsome, dark-streaked shorebirds poke their bills rapidly up and down in the mud, their whole bodies do a bobbing dance.  That dance may be a kind of camouflage in that it resembles objects floating and bouncing in the current of the waterways this sandpiper frequents to feed.
     Snipe rest between feeding forays among tufts of grass on the shores of the tiny waterways they winter along.  There they find respite from cold winds and predators such as merlins and peregrines.
     Little groups and singles of killdeer plovers and American pipits roam wind-swept, bare fields, or nearly so, in search of invertebrates to consume.  But when snow piles on the fields, burying their food, these species quickly go to shallow waters in pastures to find invertebrates.  But because they have short beaks, they get their food from the surfaces of ice-free mud and slow water, thus reducing competition with snipe for invertebrates.
     The robin-sized killdeer are brown on top and white below, with two black bars across their chests.  They trot short distances across bare ground, stopping here and there to pick up an edible tidbit.  Pipits are sparrow-sized, with two white outer tail feathers that are visible when they fly. Pipits pump their tails up and down when they walk along, which, again, may be a form of camouflage along flowing water.  Pipits, by the way, raise young on the wide open Arctic tundra.
     Song sparrows are permanent resident birds wherever they are.  They do not migrate.  This gray-brown and dark-streaked species shelters in thickets of bushes and tall weeds and grasses where they also feed on seeds of those plants.  And they shelter in thickets along little waterways.  There they run and hop across the mud and in inch-deep water to catch and eat invertebrates, as do the above-mentioned birds, adding still more beauty and interest to those tiny waters in sunny meadows.
     When the snow melts in the fields and their soil is exposed again, the killdeer and pipits go back to feeding on invertebrates in those fields, which to the birds must be an ever-expanding buffet.  But the snipe and song sparrows stay along brooks, trickles and seepages to find invertebrates.
     All four of these species of small birds made the percolating, crystalline waters in sunny meadows more interesting and enjoyable for awhile.  And the birds got food.  Beauty and interest are where you find them.