At least seven kinds of common birds in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere in eastern North America, move about, feed and rest in large flocks in winter and/or early spring. They are American crows, ring-billed gulls, Canada geese, purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds, tundra swans and snow geese. Great gatherings of these birds are thrilling and inspiring to experience, whenever and wherever they occur.
Big flocks of American crows come to this area, and across much of the Lower 48, to spend the winter where food is generally more abundant than in Canadian forests where they raise young. These crows consume corn kernels in harvested corn fields, acorns on suburban lawns, edible garbage in dumpsters and landfills and other types of food. And by mid to late afternoon, long, black rivers of crows flow across the sky from every direction to converge in the crows' nightly roosts in patches of tall coniferous trees and other sheltered habitats, including in trees in cities. Trees and the buildings of Park City Shopping Mall, just outside Lancaster City, is a place, for example, where great numbers of crows are daily entertaining and inspiring through each winter. And at all their winter roosts, many crows "caw" loudly at once, creating an exciting bedlam to their coming together for the night through winter and into early spring.
Tens of thousands of ring-billed gulls also winter in southeastern Pennsylvania. And hordes of them congregate on landfills to ingest the daily dumping of edible garbage. But they also land on bare-ground fields, when the ground is ice and snow-free, to eat earthworms and other kinds of invertebrates.
Ring-bills are light and dainty on the wing, and when they descend to land and water. And no matter where they feed, ring-bills spend nights on the safety of the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers and inland, human-made impoundments. One can see their inspiring, beautiful thousands pour off those large bodies of water early in the morning and come back to them by late afternoon every day through each winter and into early spring.
Many thousands of stately Canada geese live in southeastern Pennsylvania all winter. They rest on impoundments and daily feed in harvested corn fields, and rye fields where they pluck the green shoots of winter rye. Noisy flocks of them are inspiring to see and hear going to the fields to ingest food or to the impoundments where they rest and digest. This handsome species of goose doesn't take off from water or field all at once, but in smaller gatherings, flock after inspiring flock, until all birds have departed and are in the air, still clamoring loudly.
By early March, other gangs of Canada geese come into southeastern Pennsylvania from farther south. They registered the increasing amount of daylight each succeeding day in their brains and are eager to push north to their Canada nesting areas. Some years they flood into this area as if a dam of them broke.
In February and March, tremendous, mixed rivers and floods of purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds settle noisily on harvested corn fields like black blankets to consume corn kernels among the stubble and invertebrates whenever and wherever they find them. Their great hordes clean out field after field of its edibles, obliging the blackbirds to constantly move about to find food.
Both these kinds of blackbirds are attractive in their own dark ways. Grackles' black feathers reflect light and so appear to be iridescent, green, bronze and purple. Male red-wings black feathers are highlighted by a red patch on each shoulder, that look like hundreds or thousands of red coals in a dark furnace when red-wings fly. Female red-wings look like large, dark sparrows with their brown feathering highlighted by darker streaking.
Usually by the end of January and through February, flocks of majestic tundra swans flow into southeastern Pennsylvania from Chesapeake Bay and other waters south to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. These large, white, magnificent birds feed up to twice a day on the same foods in many of the same corn and rye fields that Canada geese do, and rest on many of the same impoundments.
As with Canada geese, one can hear the swans coming before they are seen in the sky. These magnificent birds utter forceful, reedy calls that sound like "woo-hoo, woo-hoo-hoo". Like geese and other birds, swans turn into the wind for flight control when landing on water or the ground. Flock after flock, swans parachute down, each gang following the one before it as if on an aerial highway and back-pedaling their big wings enough at the last second for a gentle landing, all the while calling loudly. And like flocks of geese, tundra swan gatherings are exciting and inspiring to experience, until they leave southeastern Pennsylvania and are on their way to the Arctic tundra to nest.
Like the swans, flocks of snow geese flood into this area about the end of January and into February. Snow geese keep coming into southeastern Pennsylvania until up to 150, 000 are here,
most of them at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area.
Snow geese do everything together. They land on the same few impoundments, covering much of them as if a sheet of ice were on the water. The snows all come down in the same few fields, making those fields look as if snow fell on them only. And when great hordes of snow geese suddenly take flight at once, with a roar of flapping wings and loud honking, backgrounds are completely blocked from view by their tremendous numbers.
Like swans and Canada geese, snow geese feed on corn kernels and rye shoots in many of the same fields as their larger cousins do. And like the swans, snow geese will stay in southeastern Pennsylvania until about mid-March, when they fly in great hordes farther north to, perhaps, the St. Lawrence River; then slowly through Canada to the Arctic tundra to nest. But while here, they were the most exciting and inspiring of bird species in southeastern Pennsylvania. Snow geese, alone, attract thousands of people to Middle Creek to experience their tremendous flocks numbering tens of thousands before those huge congregations of geese head farther north.
All these species of large-flock birds, that have adapted to wintering in farmland in North America, are exciting and inspiring to experience in winter and into early spring. Sometime take the time to look for and study them.
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