A Clump of Shrubs and Trees

     I visited a picturesque, little clump of several red-twigged dogwood shrubs, a young river birch tree and a few crab apple trees along a clear-running stream in a short-grass pasture in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland for half an hour one afternoon toward the end of November of this year.  I stopped at that patch of sheltering, woody plants and stayed in my car to see what wintering wildlife was taking advantage of that vegetation for food and cover.
     I didn't see wildlife right away, but I noticed a muskrat hole dug into the stream-bank, across the waterway, at the usual water line.  Muskrats dig burrows at the normal water level, then slant it up so their home won't easily flood.  Females raise young in those dens above the usual water line.  Muskrats eat cattail roots, grass, aquatic vegetation and other plants.
     As I continued to watch for wildlife at that tiny, stream-side thicket in a meadow, a flock of resident starlings swooped into a couple of the crab apple trees and immediately consumed some of their fruit.  There was plenty of action as the starlings flew from branch to branch and tree to tree in the process of dining.  A couple minutes later, a half dozen, or more, American robins flipped into the crab apples to take their share of fruit.  These kinds of birds, and others, digest the pulp of berries and fruit, but pass the seeds in their droppings all over the countryside.  That is the reason wild crab apples are so common along roadsides and streams, where the sprouting trees don't get plowed under or cut off as they would in fields and many pastures.
     As the starlings and robins fluttered vigorously among the crab apples, a pair of beautiful mallard ducks floated downstream on the waterway, and under those fruity trees.  At least a dozen mallards winter along that stretch of waterway through most of each winter.  At that time they feed on water plants in ponds and waterways, and on corn kernels in harvested cornfields during the day and night.
     Finally, I saw some motion on the ground under that pretty clump of shrubs and trees along the sparkling waterway.  Looking with a 16 power pair of binoculars, I saw a total of six sparrows, one resident song sparrow, three wintering white-throated sparrows and one each of wintering adult and immature white-crowned sparrows.  Those sparrows hopped about under the shrubbery to eat seeds from dead, beige fox-tail grasses and bits of crab apple pulp that fell from the feeding birds above. 
     All those sparrows were attractive, each in its own way.  They were all mostly brown, which blends them into their habitat of soil and dead grass, so that hawks and cats can't see them so easily.  The song sparrow had several black streaks in its feathering, making it a handsome bird.  The white-throats had dark and white-striped crowns and white throat patches, making them attractive.  But the white-crowns were the most impressive of those sparrows.  The adult's crown was a vivid, elegant black and white that really stood out!  The young white-crown had a dark-chestnut and beige-striped crown that made that bird appealing to see.
     Each bit of natural food and cover, in the midst of human activities and human-made habitats, is a help to a variety of wildlife.  Those little patches of food and shelter can be nurtured on lawns, meadows, fields, large parking lots and other human-managed habitats, large and small.  Or, even a little neglect, at least here and there, can go a long way in helping wildlife live naturally.