Birds in Odd Places

     Within a few days of each other early in November, I visited two human-made habitats in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to experience beauties of nature in places where most people would not look for them.  One habitat was a vegetated strip, one of several, of soil between sections of a large parking lot.  The other was a small clump of half-grown crack willow trees along a creek in a public park.
     That strip of soil and plants in the parking lot had much beauty because of blooming goldenrods, lavender asters and white asters.  Yellow leaves and curling bark on a planted river birch tree, and red foliage on a young, introduced red maple tree and a few "volunteer" stag-horn sumac trees added to that beauty.  Juicy, purple berries on a pokeweed plant that also had red stems and leaves, plus tall, pale-yellow grass, particularly foxtail grass, also added to the beauties of that strip of vegetation.
     The asters may have been planted in those strips of soil, but goldenrods and grasses probably got established there by seeds blowing in the wind and settling on the ground.  The grasses, and the asters and goldenrods from earlier blossoms, were loaded with seeds the day I was there.   
     The sumacs and pokeweed sprouted from seeds deposited by birds that ate those kinds of berries elsewhere and dropped the seeds in their droppings in that strip of soil while those birds perched on the planted trees.
     I saw a limited variety of small, handsome birds in diminutive numbers in that strip of vegetation in the parking lot.  They were there to eat seeds from the weeds, grasses and the river birch, or berries from the sumacs and pokeweed.  In less than an hour, I saw a wintering dark-eyed junco, a permanent resident song sparrow, male house finch and female northern cardinal, and a small group of roving American goldfinches eating seeds from the plants listed above.  And a handful of lovely eastern bluebirds perched on the sumacs and pokeweed to eat their berries.  None of these birds seemed afraid of cars or people in the parking lots, as they adjusted to the presence of both.  
     Birds, in their daily travels, are forever on the lookout for sources of food and shelter and go to it wherever it is.  Gangs of wintering cedar waxwings consume berries in trees and shrubbery along city streets and noisy flocks of wintering Canada geese graze on short grass along busy expressways and in the cloverleafs of those highways, for example. 
     The current-exposed roots of the few young crack willows perched upright on the bank of a creek and a tiny island in the middle of that waterway worked together to snare logs, limbs and other woods debris, forming all that into a twelve-foot-long, driftwood peninsula.  And, for a variety of reasons, a few kinds of interesting, small birds hung around those trees and that peninsula for the hour I visited that spot along the creek in the park.
     An energetic, fluttering group of entertaining yellow-rumped warblers constantly flitted after tiny, flying insects among the small trees and from the floating bridge beneath them.  Yellow-rumps resemble sparrows in winter, but have thinner beaks than sparrows do.  Warbler bills are designed to pick up insects and their eggs.  And yellow-rumps do have bright-yellow rumps that are quite noticeable.  This species nests in Canada's mixed forests and spends winters in the Lower 48.
     A song sparrow and a small gang of American goldfinches fluttered about on the drift-wood bridge in their search for seeds, invertebrates and other edibles among the fallen limbs and logs.  There is always an abundance of song sparrows in thickets along waterways and ponds where they find ample food and cover.  Goldfinches can be found most anywhere in winter as they travel about in search of food.
     Interestingly, I saw a white-breasted nuthatch and a brown creeper on one of the willows.  Both these woodland species were searching for insects and their eggs hidden away in crevices in the bark.  Nuthatches can cling to tree bark in any position, including being up-side-down as they look for food.  The creepers, however, flutter down to the base of trees and spiral their way up trunks as they search for sustenance.
     Birds, and other wildlife, can be found in the oddest of places at times.  We just need to look for them and be prepared for almost anything!