I sometimes visit a back corner of a cow pasture about a mile south of New Holland, Pennsylvania where water from a food processing plant is discharged into a small tributary of Mill Creek. Today, September 29, I stopped at that meadow of short grass for about two hours to see what life forms were evident. There was plenty because of the time of year. Insects are most evident now, birds are migrating, plant growth has reached its climax and many plants are still blooming with multitudes of beautiful flowers. So even this meadow, that is grazed by cattle and has little protective vegetation in it, was interesting to visit because of the abundance of plants and small creatures that have adapted to it and were visible to me. I enjoy the challenge of finding adaptable life in habitats that have been degraded by human activities to experience what life forms survived what we have done.
The dominant flowers in that meadow today were lots yellow ones on bur-marigolds that have gone past their peak of blooming in a couple of damp ditches. And there were many white or pale-lavender aster blossoms, depending on the species, in a ditch and scattered around the meadow. Those beautiful, little aster flowers were swarming with a variety of insects, some in abundance.
There were many cabbage white, yellow sulphur and pearl crescent butterflies fluttering incessantly among the aster blooms to sip nectar. Cabbage whites and yellow sulphurs are the most common kinds of butterflies in this area all summer and into autumn. Pearl crescents are abundant among asters because their larvae eat aster plants and pupate in the ground among them. When adult pearl crescents emerge, the innumerable aster flowers are readily available to them.
Other insects on the aster blossoms to get nectar were buckeye butterflies, bumble bees, yellow jackets and some kind of wasp. Buckeyes have several fake "eyes" on all four wings that scare off would-be predators.
Several other kinds of flowering plants were still blooming in this meadow, including red clover and smartweeds with pink blossoms, knotweeds, chicory that have blue flowers and lots of corydalis with small, yellow blooms. The smartweeds and knotweeds just began blooming, but the other species have been flowering since summer.
There were other plants of interest in this pasture. Arrowhead plants emerged from the shallow water of the brook's edges. Japanese hops vines sprawled across the ground here and there. A couple of bur cucumber vines ran along the railing of a small bridge over the tributary. A few cockle bur plants grew in the damp soil and had several thorny seed pods that will stick on animal fur, which will scatter the seeds inside when the animals pull the burs from their fur. And I saw a few orange fuzzy caterpillars eating the short grass they were on along the brook. Those caterpillars will pupate to a type of moth.
The small, shallow brook also had life in it, which to me indicates that the food processing plant in New Holland cleans its waste water before discharging it into this brook that immediately flows into Mill Creek. Mixed schools of banded killifish and black-nosed dace live in the discharge. Several bluet damselflies and a few of some kind of red damselfly were spawning eggs on mats of algae in the back waters of the brook. Some of those eggs will be food for the schools of minnows.
Several kinds of birds were in this meadow. A couple of killdeer plovers trotted about in the short grass while looking for invertebrates to eat. Two least sandpipers, which are about the size of sparrows, walked over mud flats on the tributary's shores to get invertebrates. Those sandpipers had nested on the Arctic tundra and are now migrating south to escape the northern winter.
One large tree in the pasture and two small, half-dead ones sheltered a few species of birds, including a pair of eastern bluebirds, a group of house finches, an American goldfinch, a song sparrow, two northern flickers and an immature eastern phoebe, which is a kind of flycatcher. The phoebe was a migrant that stopped in the meadow to rest and catch flying insects before continuing south. Phoebes rear young on flat surfaces under protective boulders or roofs near streams in deciduous woods so this youngster was out of his normal habitat.
Two large birds visited this pasture. One was a young great blue heron that was catching grasshoppers in the grass and among the bur-marigolds and asters. The other was an immature bald eagle that soared low overhead as it watched for muskrats, ducks and larger fish to eat.
This meadow looks like it would not harbor much life. But it does, in abundance. But it is all adaptable, common species of plants and wildlife, particularly small critters that can make use of the limited vegetation in this pasture. And there are many other places scattered around the world that are like this one.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 28, 2015
Unexpected Migrants, Two
In the afternoon of September 27th, I again drove by that one-acre pasture that was about one quarter flooded and discussed in my blog article, "Unexpected Migrants". I was there about a half hour on the 27th and noticed that the populations of creatures there shifted in just a few days, which regularly happens during times of migrations.
A few twelve-spotted dragonflies were still skimming low over the water for flying insects to eat, and now there were about 20 lesser yellowlegs wading in the shallow water after invertebrates, which is an increase in their numbers from a few days ago. The least sandpipers, apparently, were gone but about a three dozen killdeer plovers waded the shallows to get invertebrates. And I noticed about a dozen migrant tree swallows hawking rapidly about 20 feet above the water and meadow to catch flying insects. Occasional flocks of these striking swallows have been passing through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on their way south since around the middle of August.
While I was watching that partly inundated pasture, a half dozen steers walked into the pool, scaring the yellowlegs and killdeer into swift flight on swept-back, powerful wings. The long-legged yellowlegs formed a small group and circled the water a few times before settling into it again away from the cattle. A few of the killdeer also dropped to the shallows, but most of them flew across a country road and landed in a 20-acre, bare ground field that recently had been harvested of corn and cultivated, perhaps for a crop of winter rye.
Killdeer have adapted to living and nesting inland, on bare ground fields, gravel parking lots and similar, human-made habitats. They, their eggs and young are camouflaged on such exposed niches, which protects them from predators.
The killdeer, being brown on top, seemed to disappear the instant they touched down on the bare ground of the field across the road from the pasture. Happy to see a gathering of so many killdeer, I scanned the field with my 16 power binoculars to better see them, and to learn if any other creatures were on that denuded soil. There were!
As I scanned the harvested and cultivated field, I spotted a stately golden plover in winter plumage among the killdeer plover, then another golden and another. After searching that field for a few minutes, I saw six handsome golden plovers in winter plumage, which is brown mostly, with dark and yellow markings. They, too, were well camouflaged on the soil as they reached down here and there to pick up invertebrates from it.
Golden plovers nest on the treeless Arctic tundra of Alaska and Canada and spend the northern winter on the grassy pampas of southern South America. Many of them stop on bare ground fields, recently harvested hay fields, sod farms, golf courses and short-grass meadows through much of the Lower 48 United States. There they consume lots of invertebrates for the next part of their migrations south.
All those creatures, except some of the killdeer, were migrants passing through Lancaster County on their way farther south. Migrants add spice to a nature lover's life because many of them come from far away and will spend the winter, or summer, in some distant land. They are nature's ambassadors.
A few twelve-spotted dragonflies were still skimming low over the water for flying insects to eat, and now there were about 20 lesser yellowlegs wading in the shallow water after invertebrates, which is an increase in their numbers from a few days ago. The least sandpipers, apparently, were gone but about a three dozen killdeer plovers waded the shallows to get invertebrates. And I noticed about a dozen migrant tree swallows hawking rapidly about 20 feet above the water and meadow to catch flying insects. Occasional flocks of these striking swallows have been passing through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on their way south since around the middle of August.
While I was watching that partly inundated pasture, a half dozen steers walked into the pool, scaring the yellowlegs and killdeer into swift flight on swept-back, powerful wings. The long-legged yellowlegs formed a small group and circled the water a few times before settling into it again away from the cattle. A few of the killdeer also dropped to the shallows, but most of them flew across a country road and landed in a 20-acre, bare ground field that recently had been harvested of corn and cultivated, perhaps for a crop of winter rye.
Killdeer have adapted to living and nesting inland, on bare ground fields, gravel parking lots and similar, human-made habitats. They, their eggs and young are camouflaged on such exposed niches, which protects them from predators.
The killdeer, being brown on top, seemed to disappear the instant they touched down on the bare ground of the field across the road from the pasture. Happy to see a gathering of so many killdeer, I scanned the field with my 16 power binoculars to better see them, and to learn if any other creatures were on that denuded soil. There were!
As I scanned the harvested and cultivated field, I spotted a stately golden plover in winter plumage among the killdeer plover, then another golden and another. After searching that field for a few minutes, I saw six handsome golden plovers in winter plumage, which is brown mostly, with dark and yellow markings. They, too, were well camouflaged on the soil as they reached down here and there to pick up invertebrates from it.
Golden plovers nest on the treeless Arctic tundra of Alaska and Canada and spend the northern winter on the grassy pampas of southern South America. Many of them stop on bare ground fields, recently harvested hay fields, sod farms, golf courses and short-grass meadows through much of the Lower 48 United States. There they consume lots of invertebrates for the next part of their migrations south.
All those creatures, except some of the killdeer, were migrants passing through Lancaster County on their way farther south. Migrants add spice to a nature lover's life because many of them come from far away and will spend the winter, or summer, in some distant land. They are nature's ambassadors.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Some Local Autumn Bugs
We often tend to call insects "bugs", but there is an order of insects, among the many orders of insects, that really are true bugs. Here in the Middle Atlantic States there are two common species of seed bugs and one abundant kind of plant bugs, all of which are somewhat similar. All three of these attractive and interesting species are about the same size, have flat, oval bodies and similar colors and color patterns that make all of them attractive. The seed bugs include the large milkweed bugs and small eastern milkweed bugs. And eastern box elder bugs are the common plant bugs.
Large milkweed bugs and small eastern milkweed bugs both eat the maturing and mature seeds of milkweeds in milkweed pods. These species must be competitors for the same foods in the same open, sunny habitats, including meadows, fields and roadsides, in most of the United States. Direct rivalry for food like this is unusual in nature. Perhaps these two bug species have a way of reducing competition for food that I'm not aware of.
Many times I have seen little groups of both kinds of seed bugs on milkweed seed pods during summer and into autumn in this area over the years. The adults of these two milkweed bug species are red and black on top and have nearly similar patterns of colors. Large milkweed bugs are four-eighth to five-eighth of an inch long while the smaller one is three-eighth to four-eighth of an inch long. Both kinds lay eggs on growing milkweed plants and the resulting bugs live in groups on and in milkweed pods where the seeds develop. Both species have one or more generations each year, depending on the latitude where they live. Bugs in The South will have more generations than those in the north. And the adults of the last generation of the year overwinter and emerge the next spring ready to lay eggs.
The nymphs of these seed bugs are different in appearance, however. The young of the large species are orange-red with black legs and antennae. The offspring of the small kind resemble the adults, except in size.
Eastern box elder bugs live in deciduous woods along creeks and feed on the sap of box elder trees, also known as ash-leafed maple trees. Ash-leafed maples thrive best on bottomlands along waterways in most of the eastern half of the United States.
When nights get cold in October in the local area, I see thousands of fertilized female box elder bugs in masses here and there on rock outcroppings, stonewalls, the walls of buildings, around holes in trees and fence posts, and anywhere else they can find protective recesses to pass the coming winter in relative safety. Most people don't want these insect swarms on the outside walls of their houses, though box elder bugs never bite or sting, or eat anything through winter, therefore causing no damage.
Box elder bugs are three-eighth to five-eighth of an inch long and red and dark on top, with color patterns a little different than those on seed bugs. Their nymphs are red, but add black to their coloring as they grow. Females lay eggs in crevices on the bark of trees and there are one or two generations of this bug every year.
These seed bugs and box elder bugs are attractive, harmless to us and, actually, rather interesting. Watch for them this fall and succeeding summers and autumns.
Large milkweed bugs and small eastern milkweed bugs both eat the maturing and mature seeds of milkweeds in milkweed pods. These species must be competitors for the same foods in the same open, sunny habitats, including meadows, fields and roadsides, in most of the United States. Direct rivalry for food like this is unusual in nature. Perhaps these two bug species have a way of reducing competition for food that I'm not aware of.
Many times I have seen little groups of both kinds of seed bugs on milkweed seed pods during summer and into autumn in this area over the years. The adults of these two milkweed bug species are red and black on top and have nearly similar patterns of colors. Large milkweed bugs are four-eighth to five-eighth of an inch long while the smaller one is three-eighth to four-eighth of an inch long. Both kinds lay eggs on growing milkweed plants and the resulting bugs live in groups on and in milkweed pods where the seeds develop. Both species have one or more generations each year, depending on the latitude where they live. Bugs in The South will have more generations than those in the north. And the adults of the last generation of the year overwinter and emerge the next spring ready to lay eggs.
The nymphs of these seed bugs are different in appearance, however. The young of the large species are orange-red with black legs and antennae. The offspring of the small kind resemble the adults, except in size.
Eastern box elder bugs live in deciduous woods along creeks and feed on the sap of box elder trees, also known as ash-leafed maple trees. Ash-leafed maples thrive best on bottomlands along waterways in most of the eastern half of the United States.
When nights get cold in October in the local area, I see thousands of fertilized female box elder bugs in masses here and there on rock outcroppings, stonewalls, the walls of buildings, around holes in trees and fence posts, and anywhere else they can find protective recesses to pass the coming winter in relative safety. Most people don't want these insect swarms on the outside walls of their houses, though box elder bugs never bite or sting, or eat anything through winter, therefore causing no damage.
Box elder bugs are three-eighth to five-eighth of an inch long and red and dark on top, with color patterns a little different than those on seed bugs. Their nymphs are red, but add black to their coloring as they grow. Females lay eggs in crevices on the bark of trees and there are one or two generations of this bug every year.
These seed bugs and box elder bugs are attractive, harmless to us and, actually, rather interesting. Watch for them this fall and succeeding summers and autumns.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Little Woods Birds
This morning, I stopped for about an hour in a deciduous woodland of maturing trees in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to enjoy whatever of nature came my way. I soon noticed that small birds were seemingly everywhere in that woods, in the tree tops and middle layer, and on the forest floor. But they seldom were still for long, making it tough to identify them. Therefore, it was all the more exciting when I was able to identify some of those little birds. And as I would have expected, some of those species of birds were residents of the woods, while other kinds were migrants.
Several each of Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice were the first couple of species I was able to identify. These mostly-gray, woodland species are permanent residents locally. Both species were engaged in food-gathering while I was there, with some of the titmice foraging on the ground. And when I looked at the titmice with my 16 power binoculars, it seemed that they were storing seeds and other bits of food under the fallen leaves, presumably to eat during the coming winter. Not having seen that behavior before, I looked it up on the web, and, sure enough, there was reference to that storing behavior in tufted titmice, as with nuthatches, woodpeckers and blue jays. That exciting tidbit of information was new to me. That behavior, no doubt, saves bird lives.
There were other kinds of birds in those woods, including a few resident blue jays in the trees, and a gray catbird in a thicket; a catbird that didn't yet go south. A resident white-breasted nuthatch walked down a tree trunk head-first while looking for invertebrates and their eggs in crevices in the bark, and a resident downy woodpecker and resident red-bellied woodpecker pecked into dead wood of standing trees after invertebrates in the wood.
The jays were actively gathering acorns from oak trees and flying away with them to hide those nuts in tree cavities or little holes they dig into the soil. The jays, as they always are in their blue, black and white feathering, were beautiful as they repeatedly flew into and out of the oak trees.
The whole while I was seeing and identifying year-around birds in the woods, I was suspecting some of the birds in the trees were types of warblers and other kinds of small, migrating birds. At first I only saw locally living birds. But then I caught a glimpse of a small bird with a yellow head. Looking at it with binoculars, I saw it was a black-throated green warbler, a species that nests in the mixed coniferous/deciduous forests of Canada and the northeastern United States and was passing through here on migration. This striking bird, probably an adult male, had a dull-green back and a black throat.
Then I saw a beautiful male black-throated blue warbler halfway up a tree. This lovely, migrant bird had a blue-gray back, white belly and black flanks and throat. This species, too, breeds in mixed forests of Canada and the northeastern United States.
But the third kind of warbler I identified, my favorite bird of the day, was a black and white warbler that had alternate black and white stripes all over. This warbler, as does all its kin, walked up-side-sown on tree trunks and limbs, as a nuthatch does, as it looked for invertebrate food in cracks in the bark. This species nests on the fallen-leaf floors of deciduous forests in the eastern Untied States and southeastern Canada.
Black-throated green and black and white warblers spend the time of the northern winter in the comparative warmth of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and very northern South America. Black-throated blues winter in parts of Central America.
Warblers as a family of birds probably originated in Central America. Some species of them go north to raise young in less crowded forests, but return to their origin for the winter.
Look for birds wherever you may be, whenever you can. They are always interesting and beautiful, and we always learn something new about them.
Several each of Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice were the first couple of species I was able to identify. These mostly-gray, woodland species are permanent residents locally. Both species were engaged in food-gathering while I was there, with some of the titmice foraging on the ground. And when I looked at the titmice with my 16 power binoculars, it seemed that they were storing seeds and other bits of food under the fallen leaves, presumably to eat during the coming winter. Not having seen that behavior before, I looked it up on the web, and, sure enough, there was reference to that storing behavior in tufted titmice, as with nuthatches, woodpeckers and blue jays. That exciting tidbit of information was new to me. That behavior, no doubt, saves bird lives.
There were other kinds of birds in those woods, including a few resident blue jays in the trees, and a gray catbird in a thicket; a catbird that didn't yet go south. A resident white-breasted nuthatch walked down a tree trunk head-first while looking for invertebrates and their eggs in crevices in the bark, and a resident downy woodpecker and resident red-bellied woodpecker pecked into dead wood of standing trees after invertebrates in the wood.
The jays were actively gathering acorns from oak trees and flying away with them to hide those nuts in tree cavities or little holes they dig into the soil. The jays, as they always are in their blue, black and white feathering, were beautiful as they repeatedly flew into and out of the oak trees.
The whole while I was seeing and identifying year-around birds in the woods, I was suspecting some of the birds in the trees were types of warblers and other kinds of small, migrating birds. At first I only saw locally living birds. But then I caught a glimpse of a small bird with a yellow head. Looking at it with binoculars, I saw it was a black-throated green warbler, a species that nests in the mixed coniferous/deciduous forests of Canada and the northeastern United States and was passing through here on migration. This striking bird, probably an adult male, had a dull-green back and a black throat.
Then I saw a beautiful male black-throated blue warbler halfway up a tree. This lovely, migrant bird had a blue-gray back, white belly and black flanks and throat. This species, too, breeds in mixed forests of Canada and the northeastern United States.
But the third kind of warbler I identified, my favorite bird of the day, was a black and white warbler that had alternate black and white stripes all over. This warbler, as does all its kin, walked up-side-sown on tree trunks and limbs, as a nuthatch does, as it looked for invertebrate food in cracks in the bark. This species nests on the fallen-leaf floors of deciduous forests in the eastern Untied States and southeastern Canada.
Black-throated green and black and white warblers spend the time of the northern winter in the comparative warmth of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and very northern South America. Black-throated blues winter in parts of Central America.
Warblers as a family of birds probably originated in Central America. Some species of them go north to raise young in less crowded forests, but return to their origin for the winter.
Look for birds wherever you may be, whenever you can. They are always interesting and beautiful, and we always learn something new about them.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Autumn Roadside Flowers
Several kinds of flowering plants along country roadsides in southeastern Pennsylvania create beautiful bouquets of themselves during September and October. Those lovely, inspiring patches of wild flowers aren't everywhere along rural roads, but here and there in little communities of plants. And each community is unique in its composition of species from all others. But all those clumps of wild blooms are enjoyable and inspiring to see while traveling along country roads.
Many of these flowering species had bloomed in summer and continue to blossom in autumn, as long as the weather is relatively mild. Some of the taller plants include chicory with their sky-blue flowers, evening lynchis that have white flowers and evening primrose with yellow blooms. Honeysuckle vines have had sweet-smelling, beige or white blossoms all summer and into fall.
Some roadsides are mowed in summer. Then chicory and the other plants grow blossoms on short flower stems, completely their reproductive cycle in spite of adversity.
Red clover and bouncing bet that have pink blossoms and butter and eggs with yellow, snapdragon flowers grow close to the ground and live under the taller flowering plants along rural roads. The clover escaped from hay fields, and bouncing bet, like clover, is a native of Europe and is also called soapwort because its leaves can be crushed and whipped into a soapy lather. The name bouncing bet, according to legend, came from the sight of a well-endowed washerwoman busily washing clothing over a wash board.
Some of these plants only begin to bloom in autumn. Goldenrod with its many tiny, yellow blossoms begins to flower in August, but reaches a peak of blooming in fall. And goldenrod's associate flowers, the asters, bloom during September and reach a climax of flowering early in October. Some species of asters have deep-purple blooms, while other kinds have white or pale lavender ones. The species with deep-purple flowers, New York and New England asters, are planted on many local lawns for their lovely blossoms in September and October. And goldenrod and aster flowers are a couple of the last big sources of nectar for insects in autumn. Bees, smaller butterflies and other kinds of insects swarm over these plants in September and October.
Certain kinds of smartweeds with their pink flowers reach a zenith of blooming in October. Then certain roadsides are deep-pink with the many blooms of this species that dominate them.
Wild morning glory vines only bloom in autumn. Their flowers are purple, pink, white or blue, sometimes all those colors along the same country roadsides, creating striking medleys. Morning glory flowers are large and showy, dominating many rural roads.
Look for these lovely, autumn-blooming flowers when out for a walk or drive. They are enjoyable and inspiring.
Many of these flowering species had bloomed in summer and continue to blossom in autumn, as long as the weather is relatively mild. Some of the taller plants include chicory with their sky-blue flowers, evening lynchis that have white flowers and evening primrose with yellow blooms. Honeysuckle vines have had sweet-smelling, beige or white blossoms all summer and into fall.
Some roadsides are mowed in summer. Then chicory and the other plants grow blossoms on short flower stems, completely their reproductive cycle in spite of adversity.
Red clover and bouncing bet that have pink blossoms and butter and eggs with yellow, snapdragon flowers grow close to the ground and live under the taller flowering plants along rural roads. The clover escaped from hay fields, and bouncing bet, like clover, is a native of Europe and is also called soapwort because its leaves can be crushed and whipped into a soapy lather. The name bouncing bet, according to legend, came from the sight of a well-endowed washerwoman busily washing clothing over a wash board.
Some of these plants only begin to bloom in autumn. Goldenrod with its many tiny, yellow blossoms begins to flower in August, but reaches a peak of blooming in fall. And goldenrod's associate flowers, the asters, bloom during September and reach a climax of flowering early in October. Some species of asters have deep-purple blooms, while other kinds have white or pale lavender ones. The species with deep-purple flowers, New York and New England asters, are planted on many local lawns for their lovely blossoms in September and October. And goldenrod and aster flowers are a couple of the last big sources of nectar for insects in autumn. Bees, smaller butterflies and other kinds of insects swarm over these plants in September and October.
Certain kinds of smartweeds with their pink flowers reach a zenith of blooming in October. Then certain roadsides are deep-pink with the many blooms of this species that dominate them.
Wild morning glory vines only bloom in autumn. Their flowers are purple, pink, white or blue, sometimes all those colors along the same country roadsides, creating striking medleys. Morning glory flowers are large and showy, dominating many rural roads.
Look for these lovely, autumn-blooming flowers when out for a walk or drive. They are enjoyable and inspiring.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Unexpected Migrants
This afternoon, September 23, 2015, I was driving through farmland in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to do errands. I approached a one-acre, short-grass pasture that was nearly a quarter flooded. That spot had been flooded by local farmers in winter for ice skating. But why was that spot inundated now, and how? We have not had heavy or prolonged rain in a couple of weeks and no other meadows were flooded that had been in the past. But at any rate, this cropland pasture was partly covered with a few inches of water which attracted three kinds of migrants, one of them particularly interesting to me.
Nine lesser yellowlegs, that do have yellow legs, and about five least sandpipers, all migrants, waded through the short grass and shallow water to eat invertebrates, refueling for the next part of their journey to South America to escape the northern hemisphere winter. The brown, sparrow-sized least sandpipers walked in inch-deep water and pick invertebrates from the grass and water with their beaks. The grayish yellowlegs, being larger and having longer legs and bills, repeatedly jabbed at invertebrates in deeper water, thus reducing competition for food with their smaller relatives.
The yellowlegs nested in Canada and Alaska where the coniferous forests meet the treeless Arctic tundra, but the least sandpipers raised young on the tundra itself. Both species, and several other kinds of sandpipers, migrate south through North America from mid-July into early October, the majority along the seacoast, but many others through the continent's interior.
I see northbound sandpipers of several kinds on lake and stream shorelines, mud flats and flooded fields in Lancaster County every year in May. And I see southbound sandpipers of those same species here during July, August and September. So these sandpipers are not new locally, but they are still neat to see, considering where they came from. And I had not seen many this summer or fall because of the lack of rain flooding fields and pastures, though I did see a few sandpipers on the shorelines of impoundments with lower water levels.
But several twelve-spotted skimmer dragonflies were the main attraction in that flooded meadow during the half-hour I visited it. Those dragonflies, true to their name, rapidly skimmed low over the water in pursuit of flying insects to eat. They were attractive insects with two-inch bodies, three-inch wing spans and three dark spots on each wing. Three spots on each of four wings per dragonfly gives this dashing creature its common name. Each wing also had white spots between the dark ones.
Twelve-spotted skimmers are migratory along the Atlantic Coast, and these dragonflies certainly may have been migrants. They'll live in The South through winter, reproduce in ponds there, and their descendants, after pupating, will venture north in spring.
Migration is one of the ways wildlife copes with approaching winter to survive. And certain kinds of birds and insects migrate annually.
Those migrant sandpipers and dragonflies were interesting to experience today. One never knows what nature can be spotted until one gets outside. Often nature is noticed and enjoyed when it is least expected.
Nine lesser yellowlegs, that do have yellow legs, and about five least sandpipers, all migrants, waded through the short grass and shallow water to eat invertebrates, refueling for the next part of their journey to South America to escape the northern hemisphere winter. The brown, sparrow-sized least sandpipers walked in inch-deep water and pick invertebrates from the grass and water with their beaks. The grayish yellowlegs, being larger and having longer legs and bills, repeatedly jabbed at invertebrates in deeper water, thus reducing competition for food with their smaller relatives.
The yellowlegs nested in Canada and Alaska where the coniferous forests meet the treeless Arctic tundra, but the least sandpipers raised young on the tundra itself. Both species, and several other kinds of sandpipers, migrate south through North America from mid-July into early October, the majority along the seacoast, but many others through the continent's interior.
I see northbound sandpipers of several kinds on lake and stream shorelines, mud flats and flooded fields in Lancaster County every year in May. And I see southbound sandpipers of those same species here during July, August and September. So these sandpipers are not new locally, but they are still neat to see, considering where they came from. And I had not seen many this summer or fall because of the lack of rain flooding fields and pastures, though I did see a few sandpipers on the shorelines of impoundments with lower water levels.
But several twelve-spotted skimmer dragonflies were the main attraction in that flooded meadow during the half-hour I visited it. Those dragonflies, true to their name, rapidly skimmed low over the water in pursuit of flying insects to eat. They were attractive insects with two-inch bodies, three-inch wing spans and three dark spots on each wing. Three spots on each of four wings per dragonfly gives this dashing creature its common name. Each wing also had white spots between the dark ones.
Twelve-spotted skimmers are migratory along the Atlantic Coast, and these dragonflies certainly may have been migrants. They'll live in The South through winter, reproduce in ponds there, and their descendants, after pupating, will venture north in spring.
Migration is one of the ways wildlife copes with approaching winter to survive. And certain kinds of birds and insects migrate annually.
Those migrant sandpipers and dragonflies were interesting to experience today. One never knows what nature can be spotted until one gets outside. Often nature is noticed and enjoyed when it is least expected.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Beauties of Goldenrods and Asters
Today, September 21, 2015, during a drive through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, I saw many patches, large and small, of Canada goldenrod that had infinite numbers of yellow flowers and a kind of wild aster with innumerable pale-lavender petals and light-yellow centers. The blossoms of both these plants were attractive.
The perennial goldenrod and aster plants both grow up to five feet tall and are, currently, at their peak of blooming, as they are every year about this time. The blooms of both species were pretty by themselves, but even more so when together in mixed clumps. They exhibited a nice blend of colors, and brightened the open habitats they bloomed in.
Both these kinds of tall plants grow best in open, sunny habitats, such as cow pastures and country roadsides, which are human-made environments. Therefore, both types of plants are common in southeastern Pennsylvania with its many croplands. They are two of several kinds of plants that have lovely blooms in open habitats here in autumn and sometimes rival the colors and beauties of fall foliage.
When meadows are not mowed or grazed, many of them become overgrown with a variety of tall, flowering plants that actually make those pastures more interesting and attractive. Goldenrod and asters are two of those flowering species.
Some stands of predominately goldenrod and asters have clumps of bushy-looking spotted jewelweeds with their orange flowers, and tall, decorative stands of cattails and phragmites mixed in with them. All that high plant growth provides shelter for a variety of birds and mammals, including raccoons, opossums, muskrats and white-tailed deer. Cattails, phragmites and jewelweeds indicate
moist soil.
Each Canada goldenrod plant has several "fingers" pointing in every direction, each one lined with many tiny, golden blooms. Digger wasps and other kinds of insects sip nectar from goldenrod blossoms on sunny, warm afternoons in fall.
Each aster plant has several small flowers on top. Honey bees, bumble bees, pearl crescent butterflies and other types of insects sip nectar from them.
Goldenrods and asters continue to bloom well into October, depending on the weather. During heavy frosts, however, the flowers die, but continue to perch on their tall plants. Their tiny seeds become food for field mice and a variety of seed-eating sparrows and finches during winter, creatures that add to the beauties and intrigues of these dead plants through that harshest of seasons. And some people use the dead seed heads of goldenrod and asters for attractive indoor decor in winter.
Get out and see the pretty flowers of goldenrods and asters. They are attractive, in themselves, and in the birds they attract to consume their seeds.
The perennial goldenrod and aster plants both grow up to five feet tall and are, currently, at their peak of blooming, as they are every year about this time. The blooms of both species were pretty by themselves, but even more so when together in mixed clumps. They exhibited a nice blend of colors, and brightened the open habitats they bloomed in.
Both these kinds of tall plants grow best in open, sunny habitats, such as cow pastures and country roadsides, which are human-made environments. Therefore, both types of plants are common in southeastern Pennsylvania with its many croplands. They are two of several kinds of plants that have lovely blooms in open habitats here in autumn and sometimes rival the colors and beauties of fall foliage.
When meadows are not mowed or grazed, many of them become overgrown with a variety of tall, flowering plants that actually make those pastures more interesting and attractive. Goldenrod and asters are two of those flowering species.
Some stands of predominately goldenrod and asters have clumps of bushy-looking spotted jewelweeds with their orange flowers, and tall, decorative stands of cattails and phragmites mixed in with them. All that high plant growth provides shelter for a variety of birds and mammals, including raccoons, opossums, muskrats and white-tailed deer. Cattails, phragmites and jewelweeds indicate
moist soil.
Each Canada goldenrod plant has several "fingers" pointing in every direction, each one lined with many tiny, golden blooms. Digger wasps and other kinds of insects sip nectar from goldenrod blossoms on sunny, warm afternoons in fall.
Each aster plant has several small flowers on top. Honey bees, bumble bees, pearl crescent butterflies and other types of insects sip nectar from them.
Goldenrods and asters continue to bloom well into October, depending on the weather. During heavy frosts, however, the flowers die, but continue to perch on their tall plants. Their tiny seeds become food for field mice and a variety of seed-eating sparrows and finches during winter, creatures that add to the beauties and intrigues of these dead plants through that harshest of seasons. And some people use the dead seed heads of goldenrod and asters for attractive indoor decor in winter.
Get out and see the pretty flowers of goldenrods and asters. They are attractive, in themselves, and in the birds they attract to consume their seeds.
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