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.