Nature Heals Itself

     Nature heals itself with plant succession.  After fires, cultivation or grazing finishes their destruction of natural environments, and the land is let go, a succession of plants heals the wounds.  Those plants' roots hold down soil against erosion, and the plants' various parts feed and shelter a variety of wildlife adaptable enough to take advantage of them.
     I occasionally visit a recently abandoned, two-acre meadow in farmland just outside New Holland, Pennsylvania to see what is happening in nature there.  Many habitats close to home are just as good in their own ways as those environments some distance from home.  This human-made pasture already has lots of seed-bearing weeds and grasses, including Queen-Anne's-lace, chicory, ragweeds and foxtail grass.  Plus, there is a line of young, volunteer ash-leafed maple, sycamore, mulberry and crab apple trees along a fence in the rear of the meadow.  The maples and sycamore sprang up from seeds blown there by wind.  The mulberry and crab apple seeds were brought there in the digestive tracts of birds who digested the pulp of those trees' fruits, but deposited the seeds in their droppings when they perched on the fence.     
     In summer, I regularly saw an attractive pair each of eastern bluebirds and eastern kingbirds catching invertebrates in that pasture.  The bluebirds snared them in the weeds and grasses, and among foliage in the trees.  The kingbirds, on the other hand, caught flying insects in mid-air.  Their getting food in different niches of the same habitat lessens competition for food between these species, allowing both of them to live in the same habitat.
     The bluebirds must have nested in a bluebird box erected for them in that pasture because I eventually saw young bluebirds being fed by their striking parents in that habitat.  And, apparently, the kingbird pair raised offspring in a twig and grass nursery on twigs of one of the young trees along the fence in the back of the meadow.  Late in summer, it was intriguing to see the whole kingbird family perched on tall weeds and grasses as they watched for flying insects passing by them.  They snared their prey, one at a time, all day, every day, before departing to Central America to escape the northern winter.   
     By mid-summer and later in that season, I saw several handsome, highly maneuverable barn swallows, both young and older, from nearby barns where they hatched in mud pellet cradles on support beams, cruising low to the weeds and grass, and at top speed, over the pasture after flying insects.  They skimmed and swooped swiftly among each other without collision, being entertaining to watch before, they too, drifted south before the coming winter. 
     In winter, I saw a couple of kinds of permanent resident birds feed in this meadow's line of trees.   Once I saw a northern mockingbird and up to a dozen lovely bluebirds consuming crab apple fruits.  Those two species of birds were in direct competition for food, a reason the mocker was trying to drive away the bluebirds, but to no avail while I was there.  The mocker might later try to nest in the shrubbery under that line of trees. 
     Other kinds of permanent resident birds were in that pasture to ingest seeds from the weeds and grasses.  I saw a handsome song sparrow and an attractive pair of cardinals among the bushes under the trees.  Those birds zip out into the pasture to eat seeds off the weeds and grasses.
     And little gangs of a few species of wintering birds, including resident house finches from nearby farm buildings and hedgerows, gypsy American goldfinches and wintering dark-eyed juncos occasionally sweep into the meadow to consume weed and grass seeds.  Juncos nest farther north and west, but regularly winter in Pennsylvania. 
     Juncos regularly shelter in stands and patches of coniferous trees during winter, and this bunch was no exception.  Several times a day they flitted out of a half-grown stand of white pine and Norway spruce trees, across 150 yards of a harvested hay field and onto the weeds and grasses in the pasture to dine on their many tiny seeds.  When full of seeds, the juncos flutter back to the sheltering conifers to rest and digest in comparative safety.                  
     A few times I saw a wintering female American kestrel, a small type of hawk closely related to peregrine falcons.  Once, the kestrel was perched on the tip-top of one of the young trees as she watched for field mice in the meadow to catch and ingest.  Another time, I saw her hovering on rapidly beating wings into a strong wind as she looked for mice.  But she might also catch some of the small birds in that pasture. 
     Deserted human-made habitats that succeed back to more natural, overgrown ones are valuable to adaptable kinds of wildlife.  Nature heals itself!  And I always enjoy experiencing the beauties and intrigues of nature in those successional habitats.    

Wintering Birds at Blackwater

     Two impoundments of inches-deep, fresh water near the visitors' center of Blackwater Wildlife Refuge, just south of Cambridge, Maryland, is alive with a variety of water birds in winter.  This refuge of 28, 894 acres is based on the broad Blackwater River in the flat, marshy Chesapeake Bay Country on Maryland's eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  This refuge is also located in southwestern Delmarva Peninsula, which includes Delaware, Maryland and Virginia east of the Chesapeake.  It is a natural, traditional place for thousands of geese, swans, and ducks of several kinds to spend winter.  Here they find ample food from mid-October to the middle of February or early March when they start their trips north or west to their breeding territories.  And here we find another habitat of peace and beauty: An intriguing place of rivers, shallow, freshwater ponds, marshes, fields and woods, including many stands of evergreen loblolly pines.  Emergent vegetation grows in the impoundments and several patches of tall, attractive phragmites with feathery, beige plumes stand here and there around the pools.   
     I visited Blackwater Refuge a few times several years ago, but for an hour or two a day, the last two weeks, I have been viewing a few inches-deep, freshwater ponds by camera mounted on a long, lean dike between those shallow pools.  I see what the camera "sees" as it turns and stops, turn and stops, 360 degrees, day and night.  I pick up the live images and sounds of the birds on a computer screen at home.  But those ponds are only part of Blackwater Refuge.  I know I am seeing only part of the wildlife that winters at Blackwater.
     The wintering birds I see and hear in greatest abundance live on my computer screen are majestic Canada geese, elegant tundra swans, attractive pintail ducks and mallard ducks, and handsome ring-billed gulls.  Many geese, swans and ducks shovel up and feed on emergent vegetation and their roots in those shallow pools.  But these waterfowl species also fly out in flocks to nearby grass fields and harvested corn fields to feed on grass they pluck and kernels of corn they pick or scoop up with their beaks and ingest. 
     Low-slanting, winter sunlight at dawn and dusk adds another dimension of beauty to this watery, grassy environment.  Still water of the impoundments reflects the winter sky, including brilliantly colored sunsets and sunrises, trees, and loudly calling waterfowl, as those birds pass over the ponds to feeding fields, or, when full of vegetation, back to the water's safety. 
     Deciduous and coniferous trees and flocks of flying waterfowl are silhouetted handsomely before sunrises and sunsets. Seeing those flocks of noisy geese, swans and ducks before a striking sunset or sunrise is truly inspiring, lifting human spirits.                             
     Sometimes I see a little group of drake pintail ducks taking off from one of the shallow ponds in hot pursuit of a female pintail.  The male pintail that keeps up with her is accepted as her mate.
     Canada geese and tundra swans are never quiet as groups.  Gangs of these species, plus ducks and ring-billed gulls, are often shifting from place to place, to feed or for another resting spot on the water, or on the dike between the ponds.  I often see flocks of Canadas, swans, ducks and ring-billed gulls, sometimes all those species at once, on that strip of soil.
     Loose gatherings of gracefully-flying ring-billed gulls come off the Blackwater River and the Chesapeake Bay beyond that river to feed and rest at this refuge.  They consume anything that is edible, including dead fish.  And they rest on the fresh-water pools and the dike between them.    
     There are other, less common, species of birds wintering around those two impoundments at Blackwater Refuge, including shoveler ducks, green-winged teal, great blue herons, bald eagles and northern harriers.  The shovelers and teal are puddle ducks, so-named because of their tendency to feed on aquatic plants in shallow water.  Groups of shovelers swim in circles and stir the mud on the bottom with their webbed feet.  Then they take in beaksful of mud and strain out edibles, and discarding the mud.  
     Several great blue herons winter at Blackwater where they stalk fish in open water.  These herons fish as individuals and chase other great blues away from their fishing spots.
     Several bald eagles winter at Blackwater, and some of them nest there as well.  These big raptors catch larger fish and other creatures around the refuge, but also scavenge dead fish and animals wherever they can.  These eagles even fight each other for food.
     Northern harriers are open country hawks that fly and soar slowly into the wind and low to the ground as they watch for mice and small birds in fields around marshes and ponds.  Harriers have long wings that tilt slightly from side to side to help give them control of flight in the wind.  
     Blackwater Refuge is another peaceful, pretty place where wildlife can find food and shelter throughout the year.  And this refuge preserves some of the wetlands that are beneficial to many kinds of wildlife and offer us inspiring, soul-lifting beauty and intrigue the year around.        

Winter Thickets

     One morning in mid-December, I stopped along a rural road in southern Berks County, Pennsylvania because of an interesting mix of human-made habitats along that road.  An overgrown field hosted tall, lovely and dead foxtail grass, goldenrod and asters, all loaded with tiny seeds.  At one end of that field was a row of Tartarian honeysuckle bushes full of red berries.  Bittersweet and poison ivy vines climbed young trees on another edge of the field.  Those vines were full of berries, too.  Behind the field, there was a planted row of tall Norway spruce trees, most of which had large, beige cones hanging from their branch tips.  And a few pin oak trees, loaded with acorns, dotted a bottomland pasture.  All these attractive plants had foods that a variety of birds and mammals will eat through winter.  And I saw a few kinds of birds among those thickets of food sources and shelter while I was viewing those pretty human-made habitats beneficial to wildlife.  Little gatherings of American robins and eastern bluebirds were busily consuming strikingly-orange bittersweet berries, as they will all winter.  Blue jays were picking acorns from the pin oaks and flying away with those nuts in their beaks, one at a time, to poke them into tree crevices or push them into loose soil for safe keeping for winter food, as, no doubt, that had been doing since late October.  And a few each of house finches and northern cardinals were ingesting seeds from grasses, goldenrod and asters, as they will all winter.       
     I like overgrown, tangled thickets of young trees, bushes, vines, and tall weeds and grasses in hedgerows between fields, along the edges of woods, streams and rural roads, and in abandoned fields and meadows through the year, including in winter.  Each thicket has a variety of beautiful and intriguing plants and animals at all times.  Thickets, and marshes, are my favorite local habitats.
     I know there has to be many more kinds of vegetation and wildlife in that collection of neighboring human-made thickets I experienced that December morning in Berks County.  Cottontail rabbits and white-tailed deer will nibble grass, twigs and other vegetation.  Acorns from the pin oaks will feed gray squirrels, deer mice and wintering American crows.  Berries, including those on thorny-stemmed multiflora rose and barberry bushes, will feed yellow-rumped warblers, cedar waxwings and starlings through winter.  Red junipers have tiny, pale-blue cones that resemble berries and are eaten as such by the types of birds mentioned here.  The weed and grass seeds will nourish permanent resident song sparrows and American goldfinches and wintering white-throated sparrows and dark-eyed juncos all winter.
     Red foxes, opossums, striped skunks, raccoons and other kinds of mammals consume lots of crab apples from crab apple trees.  And a variety of birds ingest crab apples as well.  As with berries and red juniper cones, mammals and birds digest the pulp of crab apples, but pass the seeds in their droppings as they travel, thus spreading crab apple trees far and wide.   
     Small, winged seeds in Norway spruce cones are food to permanent resident American goldfinches and Carolina chickadees, and wintering pine siskins and two species of crossbills.  These birds climb about on the cones and pull the seeds out with their beaks, and eat seeds that fluttered to the ground.  Crossbills have crossed mandibles that aid in extracting seeds from coniferous tree cones.     
     Interesting, overgrown thickets like this one are all over southeastern Pennsylvania, and through much of the United States.  They all offer year around food and shelter to a large variety of wildlife.
And they have much beauty and intrigue for us to experience.  Thickets are well worth visiting, but without invading them.  Leave them alone for the benefit of wildlife.     

Cropland Hawks and Eagles

     Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's human-made croplands, that are plowed and harvested to the ground, hardly seem a place where hawks and eagles would live or hunt in, but at least eight species annually do, at least part of each year.  Not all those raptors are in that farmland at once, but each kind is there in its own time.  All of them are predators and all make farmland more interesting to experience.  Some only pass through here in migration, others are permanent residents, and still others are here in winter. 
     Red-tailed hawks, American kestrels and bald eagles, as species, are permanent residents in Lancaster County cropland, including nesting here.  The majestic red-tails and eagles can be spotted soaring gracefully high in the sky, anytime of year. 
     Red-tails and eagles start their breeding cycles by late December.  Females of both these stately species lay two or three eggs on large, stick platforms high in tall, lone cropland trees or big trees in woodlots and hedgerows.  By courting early, their young will be fledged and independent of parental care by June when prey animals are most abundant.
     Red-tails and bald eagles are scavengers of dead animals, as well as hunters of live creatures.  They consume animals killed on country roads that have minimal traffic, and they have the sense to rise from those roads when vehicles approach.  These large raptors also ingest deceased farm animals, particularly chickens, that were discarded onto the fields.       
     The much smaller, colorful kestrels court in March and raise young in tree cavities, barns and boxes erected for them and screech owls.  This little relative of peregrine falcons commonly perches on roadside wires and hovers lightly into the wind on rapidly beating wings to watch for mice, small birds and larger insects to eat.
     Peregrines, and their smaller relatives, merlins, migrate through this area in September and October.  They are adapted to wide open spaces, including beaches, salt marshes and croplands to hunt a variety of birds.  Peregrines go after mourning doves, rock pigeons, starlings and similarly-sized birds, while the pigeon-sized merlins hunt sparrow-sized birds.  In Lancaster County, I sometimes see peregrines and merlins perched erect and stately on top of roadside poles in farmland as they watch for prey.  Or I see them speeding low over fields on long, swept-back wings after zig-zagging birds desperately trying to elude them.        
     Crow-sized Cooper's hawks are traditionally woodland raptors that have learned to hunt birds in farmland.  They are swift on the wing, fast enough to catch many kinds of birds in woods, suburbs and fields.
     Today, many pairs of Cooper's raise young on stick platforms in tall trees in older suburban areas and hunt birds in that human-made habitat and croplands.  A pair or two of Coop's hatch offspring here in New Holland, Pennsylvania where I am thrilled to see them.
     The handsome northern harriers are hawks that mostly just pass through Lancaster County in their north-bound and south-bound migrations.  Only a few might stay here all winter, where fields of tall grass offer them shelter at night and field mice to hunt during the day.         
     Because they adapted to open ground with few perches to watch for prey, harriers developed the habit of hunting mice and small birds by pumping slowly, and gracefully into the wind low to the ground as they watch and listen for prey.  If a potential victim is spotted, each harrier suddenly drops to the ground to snare it in its long, sharp talons.  If no prey is perceived, each harrier eventually turns and glides with the wind, then swings into the wind again for another run at catching a small critter.  Harriers' method of hunting is interesting to watch.
     A few rough-legged hawks, down from nesting territories on the high Arctic tundra, spend winter in Lancaster County farmland.  They used to winter here in greater numbers, but I think there is a limited number of field mice in fields harvested to the ground, planted to winter rye, or plowed in autumn, none of which supports mice.  And, I think, rough-legs are chased out by the stronger, permanent resident red-tailed hawks.
     Rough-legs are spotted as erect forms perched in lone trees in fields, or hovering into the wind as they watch for mice.  It's exciting to see them because of their beauty, scarcity and where they came from.
     These are raptors seen in Lancaster County cropland at least part of each year.  And they make that human-made habitat a bit more intriguing.    

Wintering Geese, Deer and Turkeys

     In winter, varying-sized groups of permanent resident Canada geese, white-tailed deer and wild turkeys feed on waste corn kernels in the beige stubble of harvested cornfields in southeastern Pennsylvania farmland.  All these wildlife species are large and easily seen in those fields of little cover.  Between feeding forays, the geese rest on human-made impoundments, while the deer and turkeys shelter in woodlots and thickets.  And these species are attractive, and adaptable enough to take advantage of foods in agricultural areas, as long as the snow cover isn't too deep for them to reach it. But these camouflaged creatures are more visible in the fields when they are highlighted by a snow cover on the ground that is shallow enough for them to find food under it.  
     Flocks of handsome Canada geese feed in cornfields twice a day, both during the day and at night, therefore, sometimes overlapping both the deer and the turkeys in local croplands.  Group after group after group of hungry geese take off into the wind for greater lift from local lakes and ponds, amid their excited honking, and follow each other to fields to shovel up waste corn and/or graze on the green shoots of winter rye.  They descend, again flock after noisy flock, onto the fields, into the wind for better flight control, and immediately begin consuming vegetation.  There they stay until full of corn, or chased off by humans, dogs or some other threatening animal such as a fox or coyote.  And when leaving the fields, they take off, group after group, and fly back to their watery roosts, swirling gracefully into the wind, to descend to their watery refuges to rest.
     Majestic wild turkeys feed during the day only.  In autumn and winter these magnificent birds ingest a lot of acorns and berries in the woods and along woodland edges.  But they also eat many corn kernels in fields bordering their woodland homes.  Turkey flocks usually spread out and advance across a field, picking up corn kernels and anything else edible to them as they walk along.  Late in winter afternoons, the turkeys make their ways back to sheltering woods where they spend each winter night in the treetops to avoid ground predators.
      The elegant deer slip gracefully out of shadowy woodlots at dusk, sometimes passing turkeys striding and/or flying back to their woodland shelters for another winter's night.  At twilight, the handsome deer are still visible, particularly with snow on the ground, especially during the time of a full moon, or nearly so.  But if there is no snow or moonlight, the deer quickly fade into the prevailing darkness of night.
     The deer consume lots of corn kernels, but also graze on alfalfa and clover in hay fields.  And when full, they ease into the sheltering, dark woods to rest, and chew their cuds, as cattle do.
     During winter, all these elegant game species of wildlife rely heavily on waste corn kernels and other vegetation in agricultural fields.  They benefit from our agriculture and we enjoy their beauties and grace.