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.