February Preparations for Nesting

     In February each year, a variety of birds in southeastern Pennsylvania farmland prepare for the coming nesting season, an indication that spring has arrived locally.  And some of those preps are obvious to people who look for them, bringing joy to their hearts, including mine.
     Weather is fickle and cold, snow and ice could be prevalent during February in this area.  But longer periods of daylight each succeeding day and the sun rising "higher" and "hotter"in the sky stir hormones in many kinds of birds during February. 
     Clamorous floods of tundra swans, Canada geese and snow geese,  and a variety of duck species, particularly northern pintails, American wigeons, ring-necked ducks and common mergansers, pour onto local cropland lakes and fields for a few weeks.  The swans, geese and some duck species rest on the water, and feed on corn kernels in harvested corn fields and the green shoots of winter grain plants.  Ring-necks stay on the human-made impoundments and dive under water to eat aquatic vegetation.  Mergansers also remain on the water and dive under to catch small fish in their thin, serrated beaks.
     The elegant swans and stately geese are most enjoyable to experience when they are flying, in organized, noisy flocks, to and from feeding fields and impoundments.  They are particularly majestic as black silhouettes flying before strikingly red sunsets.  
     During warm afternoons in February, pretty males of a variety of small, permanent resident birds of farmland thickets, wood lots and farm yards sing beautifully to announce themselves, establish nesting territories and attract mates, much to the joy of the people who hear them.  With reproductive hormones stirred, male Carolina wrens, northern cardinals, song sparrows, house finches, tufted titmice and starlings make those built habitats ring with song in February.
     Handsome male mourning doves and rock pigeons add to the bird concerts in February.  Each kind of these related birds has its own way of cooing that can be heard by delighted farm folk ready for spring.  Many pairs of doves build flimsy nurseries in young evergreen trees whose needled boughs shelter the young.  And pigeons build poor cradles on supporting beams in barns and under bridges.  Each female of every pair of both kinds lays only two white eggs per brood.  But each pair attempts to raise several broods, from early spring into September.    
     Interestingly, the attractive male downy woodpeckers of farmland wood lots and farm yards hammer on dead limbs in trees, and on spouting, roofs and other built objects in February to announce their presence and nesting territories.  Obviously, their loud, rapid drumming serves the same purpose as birds' singing; to attract mates for raising young in cavities that both parents chip into dead wood in trees.  And that drumming is another sign of spring.
     In February, lone, local pairs of stately Canada geese and handsome mallard ducks, quietly and secretly look for nesting sites among tall grasses near ponds and streams in this area.  These pairs have separated themselves from flocks of their kinds to have the freedom for their searches.  And they will chase away any rivals of their own kinds to keep their nesting territories.
     Generally, by early March, each hen of goose and duck creates a nursery on the ground that is protected by tall plants.  Each female begins to lay eggs by the second week in March and the goslings and ducklings hatch as early as the third week in April, thankfully when the weather usually is a bit warmer.
     Usually, by the end of February, great, mixed hordes of noisy purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds begin to pour into southeastern Pennsylvania on their way to nesting sites.  Whole fields are blackened with their numbers as they feed on corn kernels, other grains and seeds, and any invertebrates that are already available to them.  Sometimes the blackbirds "pinwheel" over each other in their search for food in the fields.
     But these two kinds of blackbirds are most striking when in flight to seek more food in other fields.  The grackles have a purple and green sheen that is most visible in sunlight.  Red-wings in flight are even more attractive in flight.  The red shoulder patches of the flying males look like hot, flickering embers in a furnace of black coal.                     
     But within a couple of weeks, the grackles and red-wings are in their nesting habitats.  Most of the grackles will form little nesting colonies among stands of coniferous trees, while red-wings will be among the many clumps of cattails in this area.
     February is packed with more bird activity than most people know.  And a lot of it has to do with prepping for nesting.