FEATHERED ENTERTAINERS

     In mid-May of 2020, I visited two small, public parks, in consecutive afternoons, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to see what creatures were about and what they were doing.  Both days were partly sunny, but windy, and cool for May.  The parks each had lawns, tall trees, shrubbery and a waterway flowing through it.  Interestingly, most of the birds I saw in one park, I saw in the other.  And those birds were involved in the same activities in each park.
     Two casts of feathered characters were in both parks.  Actors with minor parts those two days included American robins on lawns, Baltimore orioles, Carolina chickadees and downy woodpeckers among the trees, and gray catbirds in shrubbery.  But swallows and swifts were the main actors in the air while yellow-rumped warblers played that dominant role in the bushes.  Those characters were the most entertaining during the days I visited those parks.
     In both parks, little groups of barn swallows, with a few each of tree swallows and purple martins mixed in, swooped back and forth, up and down and around and around, just above the creeks and lawns to catch flying insects, their only food.  Those three kinds of swift, highly-manuverable  swallows weaved among their fellows without collision with them.   
     Swallows are streamlined with swept-back wings for speedy, manuverable flight after flying insects they catch in mid-air.  And males of each species have iridescent feathering that, apparently, is attractive to females of their respective kinds.  Male barn swallow are deep-purple on top and light-orange below while male tree swallows are blue above and white beneath.  Male martins are deep, shiny purple all over.    
     Meanwhile, several chimney swifts swirled rapidly above the treetops to catch flying insects.  Swifts are about the size of swallows, but dark-gray all over, and generally sweep higher across the sky after flying insects than swallows do.  Therefore, competition for that food on the wing is reduced between those groups of birds. 
     Small, flying insects were active in both parks those two days, in spite of the cold wind.  The sunlight warmed the ground and the waterways, which heated the air above them, allowing the insects the energy to fly and be available to the swallows and swifts. 
     Many, attractive yellow-rumped warblers consumed small invertebrates in the foliage of trees and shrubbery in both parks.  Each pretty bird constantly flitted from twig to twig in its quest for food.  Some individuals sang snatches of their trilling songs as they moved about and caught invertebrates. 
     Males are the more striking of the two genders of yellow-rumps.  Each male is mostly gray and black with yellow on its rump, crown and each flank.  Female yellow-rumps have those same color patterns, but not as vividly.
     Those yellow-rumps were making their way north to raise young in Canada's boreal forests.  But their swarms are also beautiful and intriguing to experience while they are feeding on invertebrates in foliage between the steps of their migration.     
     Swallows, swifts and warblers are small in size, but big in beauty, grace and entertainment.  They all certainly livened the two parks I visited this May.