Waterfowl Wintering in a Cove

     During at least one afternoon every November or early December, for the last several years, I visit a little, shallow-water cove on the west shore of the 400-acre, human-made impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania to view a few common species of wintering waterfowl, including flocks of Canada geese, tundra swans, black ducks and mallard ducks.  Those kinds of birds rest and digest, and preen their feathers, between feeding forays, either in mixed groups or gatherings of their own.  That mixing of waterfowl creates interesting and lovely combinations of colors, shapes and sizes on the water.  And all those birds "tip-up" to extend their necks and beaks down to ingest aquatic vegetation from the bottom. 
     I sit in my vehicle on a blacktop road that tightly parallels that lake so I can get close views of the attractive geese, swans and ducks, without scaring them away.  Most types of wildlife are frightened by the human figure.
     I pick November or December, before hordes of snow geese land on Middle Creek's impoundment and dominate it.  It's difficult to concentrate on lesser numbers of waterfowl when several tens of thousands of snow geese are on the lake and nearby fields.
     The shallow cove is bordered on two sides by crack willow trees, patches of cattails and rushes, a few red-twigged dogwood bushes and a couple of winterberry shrubs, profusely decorated with red berries.  That vegetation of moist bottomlands provide food and cover to a variety of wildlife in winter, including mukrats, white-tailed deer and a variety of berry-eating birds.
     The majestic Canada geese often dominate the cove with their ceaseless, loud honking, and numbers.  They have gray feathering on their large bodies, and black ones on their heads and long necks, making those features resemble black stockings.                  
     Elegant and white tundra swans sometimes dominate the cove, either themselves or together with the Canadas.  Both stately species rest on the water, but take off, flock after bugling or reedily whooping flock, into the wind and form V's and long lines as they fly to harvested corn fields to consume harvested corn or to winter rye fields to ingest the green shoots of winter rye plants. 
     Often the geese and swans are beautifully silhouetted against brilliant sunsets.  And sometimes they land on snow covered fields and disappear in and out of drifting snow, tinged pink by sunsets.  
     When full of grain and green shoots, those large birds fly back to Middle Creek's lake, group after group, and come in for a landing on the water's surface with webbed feet and long necks extended, their reflections racing through the water to meet their impacts on it.
     The dark, rugged-looking black ducks wind through groups of geese and swans in the cove, offering interesting contrasts in colors and sizes.  These large puddle ducks, along with their close cousins, the mallards, join geese and swans in harvested corn fields to shovel up waste corn.  There the geese, swans and ducks form beautiful, mixed groups.  Mallard hens are brown with darker markings that blends them into their backgrounds so they're not so visible to predators.  Mallard drakes, on the other hand, are more decorative than their mates, with yellow beaks, iridescent, green heads and bright orange webbed feet.      
     When these two kinds of ducks take flight from water or soil, one can hear their wings pulsing rapidly and rythmically, and a hen's occasional quacking.  Look up quickly, and you might see gangs of these ducks sweeping across the sky, often in front of brilliant sunsets.
     Though common and everyday in southeastern Pennsylvania in winter, I never tire of seeing these beautiful birds, through the day, or at dusk.  They are all handsome, and add much beauty and intrigue to this area's farmland through much of each winter.

Spotting Nocturnal Mammals

     I have seen many nocturnal mammals, "in the fur", at dusk and at night in my lifetime.  I've seen red foxes when I was a boy, perched in trees.  I've spotted groups of white-tailed deer emerging from gray woodlands at twilight and entering snow-covered fields to feed on alfalfa and corn kernels.  I have noticed raccoon families along creeks at night and skunks and opossums on my lawn at dusk.  And I have spotted all these mammals in vehicle headlights along dark country roads.  But in the past few months I have enjoyed seeing nocturnal mammals going about their daily activities uninterrupted at three different ground feeders during the night through live cameras, some kind of nighttime lighting and our home computer screen.  Those feeders are in a lawn in South Carolina, a yard in Akron, Ohio and a woodland in southeastern Iowa.  And these nighttime mammals are always entertaining and educational when seen without them knowing they are being watched.
     I have seen raccoons, opossums and deer mice at all three feeders, and white-tailed deer at two of them.  That shows how adaptable, widespread and common those mammal species are in the United States.    
     I've seen up to eleven raccoons, four opossums and a few white-tailed deer at once at the feeders in South Carolina.  I never saw so many 'coons or 'possums in one place at one time before.  Two red foxes have been there together, but not regularly.  And I once saw an armadillo and a deer mouse there as well.  All the different mammal species seem to get along well for the most part, though their might be a brief, mild confrontation of mammals of the same kind.
     Sometimes there are no mammals to be seen at those feeders at night.  Then one sees one or more, then more, moving and bobbing "lights" back in the dark woods.  This is eye shine, being reflected from the eyes of nocturnal mammals approaching the illuminated feeders, mostly one or two at a time.
     I have also enjoyed seeing a few each of raccoons and opossums, a striped skunk and a cottontail rabbit at ground feeders at Akron, Ohio.  Strangely, although there is a successional woodland bordering the lawn, I've never seen deer coming to those feeders.  And, though they are common in the eastern United States, the skunk at Akron was the only one I saw at all three feeders, at least so far.  I can always identify the rabbit back in the woods by its eye shine alone, because it bounces along dramatically as that critter hops about.
     The deer feeders in Iowa, however, are the most exciting to me.  Those feeders are filled with field corn and are positioned in a deciduous woods.  Up to twelve deer at a time converge at that feeder at once.  One can spot bucks, does and fawns of the year by obvious features, including some big racks on some bucks.  But deer often seem quarrelsome to each other, which is a surprise because they seem so timid and docile. 
     Up to eight raccoons, four opossums and several deer mice also come regularly to this feeder.  I first noticed the mice by their tiny eye shine low to the ground as they each sneaked in to grab a corn kernel.  The raccoons chase the mice, if the 'coons spot them.  But I never saw any mice being caught.                
     There was one incident when several deer leaped and dashed across a woodland, soil road and through the woods, followed a few seconds later by two or three coyotes!  What a thrill!
     And there was sighting of a lone bobcat slipping by the deer feeder.  Bob cats could be more common over a greater part of North America than many people realize.
     Other, interesting kinds of mammals can be spotted at feeders at night in the United States.  One just has to want to experience them.  

Encounters With Juncos

     When I was about nine years old, I was walking in the family garden in farmland outside Rohrerstown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one late afternoon in January.  Snow was on the ground and weeds stood tall above it.  Suddenly, a dozen small, gray birds fluttered up from those weeds and away on the wind.  I remember seeing white V's on their tails as they flew.  I never saw birds like that before and learned later they were an eastern North American form of dark-eyed juncos.  And I learned they were eating seeds off the weeds they were among.   
     Sometime later, again in winter with snow on the ground and the trees, I was walking through an evergreen-scented, two-acre stand of planted, half-grown white pines and Norway spruces when I accidentally chased up several juncos from weeds between the trees.  Each bird quickly bounded into the needled-bearing coniferous boughs to escape, to them, a possible "predator", me.  Each startled junco uttered a series of alarmed, rapid chips as it disappeared into the shadowy limbs of the evergreens.  The last thing I saw of each bird was the white V from the outer feathers, one on each side, of its tail.  Then all of them were out of sight.  I walked on through the conifer woods, hearing the juncos chipping excitedly as I went and thinking that the sudden disappearance of those white tail feathers might confuse predators that were chasing the juncos and suddenly saw nothing to follow.  
     My family moved when I was fifteen to a suburban area outside Lancaster City.  One winter afternoon I walked through a planted, conifer-smelling, one acre patch of young white pines and Norway spruces and again, inadvertently, chased several dark-eyed juncos from a clump of tall, seedy grasses where they were feeding on seeds.  Away those juncos went, into the evergreens, flashing their white V's and chipping all the while.
     Dark-eyed juncos only winter in Lancaster County, and across much of the United States.  They raise young in mixed deciduous/coniferous forest across Canada and Alaska and down the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains of North America.  The eastern form of this species is dapper-looking, being slate-gray on top with white bellies, which resembles gray, winter skies and snow on the ground.  The juncos' constant flicking of the white V's on their tails could be a communication among them.
     Juncos consume seeds in winter, and many of them come to bird feeders during that harshest of seasons.  The main predators on these little birds are sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper's hawks and house cats, particularly when juncos and other kinds of small birds are congregated at feeders.
     Dark-eyed juncos are delightful little birds that entertain and inspire us at bird feeders on our lawns during winter.  And they are often found among adjacent patches of weeds and grasses, and planted coniferous trees where they ingest seeds, and rest between feeding forays.        
    

Some Lawn Fringillidae

     When I was about ten years old, I heard and saw a bright-red male cardinal singing from the tip of a pear tree in a Lancaster City, Pennsylvania back yard.  He was the first cardinal I ever saw, and I thought he, and his songs, were beautiful among new leaves and before the blue sky.  And he was especially brilliant in sunlight.
     The attractive northern cardinals, song sparrows and house finches are permanent resident fringillidae, or seed-eating, birds that live and raise young in thickets in hedgrows and woodland edges.  And, because they are adaptable, they also hatch offspring in shrubbery on lawns across much of the United States, where they are three of the most common bird species in that human-made habitat.  Being adaptable enough to nest in suburban areas helps build up their populations.
     These native, North American species, being related and sharing habitats, have several characteristics in common.  They are all insect eaters during warmer months, but consume seeds in winter.  They all come to bird feeders any time of year to ingest seeds and grain.  There these handsome birds, and others, provide us humans with much beauty, entertainment and inspiration.  Male cardinals, song sparrows and house finches sing delightful ditties early each spring in their thicket and lawn shrubbery homes.  They all begin to sing and court females of their kinds as early as warm afternoons in the middle of February, offering another local sign of spring.  And all these birds build cup nurseries of tiny twigs, rootlets and grasses tucked away in sheltering bushes in hedgerows, woodland edges and lawns.
     Most every bushy habitat has its pair of cardinals.  Male cardinals usually sing their lovely songs of "cheer, cheer, cheer", from lofty perches overlooking their home territories.  Recently fledged cardinals have brown beaks instead of the pink ones of their parents.  The warm-red of cardinals is most appreciated in winter when several of those birds are among coniferous trees on lawns with snow on the ground and in the trees.
     Song sparrows are brown and dark-streaked, which camouflages them among shrubbery, weeds and grasses.  This type of sparrow gets much of its summer, invertebrate food from the muddy, thicket-choked shores of streams and ponds.  There it plays the role of sandpipers in a narrow niche where those shorebirds won't go.             
     House finches are originally from the American west.  Many of them were taken to New York City to be sold in pet shops to be cage birds.  But keeping them was illegal and some pet shop owners released house finches into New York rather than being fined for having them for sale.  Of course, boys met girls for many generations and now house finches inhabit much of the eastern United States. 
     The lovely male house finches are gray with dark streaks and pink on their heads, chests and backs.  Female and young birds are similar to the males, but don't have the pink.
     House finches nest in bushes, young arborvitae trees and sheltered places on buildings.  But they don't seem to be able to compete with wintering gangs of aggressive house sparrows, so many house finches retire to hedgerows and woods edges through winter.  But they return to the suburbs again too court and rear youngsters.    
     These related, seed-eating birds are present in most every shrubby lawn, where they live permanently and raise young.  They are all handsome birds and sing delightful songs early in spring when we need it most.  They are well worth having and knowing as neighbors. 

Wintering Brant and Black Ducks

     In mid-November of this year, I got a live camera on Long Beach Island, New Jersey on our computer to see if I could spot Atlantic brant geese and black ducks in Atlantic Coast salt marshes.  I was thrilled to see a small flock each of brant and black ducks in the same view at the same time on the shallow water of a backwater off the ocean, where that water borders a salt marsh.  And there were other brant farther out on the backwater at that same time.  Other species of wildlife winter in coastal salt marshes in the eastern United States, but, to me, Atlantic brant and black ducks are icons, the spirits, of that habitat in winter.  They are exciting and inspiring to experience in winter salt marshes.
     I've seen both these species of waterfowl, in the feathers, wintering in Atlantic Coast salt marshes in the past, but I haven't been to a salt marsh in winter in years.  Furthermore, It's easier to see some kinds of wildlife by these live cameras than to try to see them in the wild.  Most wild creatures shy away from the human figure.    
     Brant and black ducks have much in common, though each is from a different genus of waterfowl.  They raise young in different habitats, but many individuals of each kind winter in the same salt marshes along the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to North Carolina.  
     The elegant brants and handsome blacks have dark feathering that makes them stand out beautifully in the beige salt grass of winter.  Both types of birds often live, feed and fly in highly visible flocks.  Brant and black ducks are also easily noticed in open water on the edges of salt marsh back waters and channels.  They both appear black in the distance and against snow.  These species are about the same size because brant are a small type of goose and black ducks are robust ducks.  But brant have a typical goose shape with a long neck while blacks are built like typical ducks with shorter necks.  They are easy to identify from each other by shape alone.   
     Brant and blacks both ingest vegetation through winter.  Both of them "tip-up" in shallow water to dredge alga and other aquatic vegetation from the mud.  But brant also pluck grass and the green shoots of winter grains in fields while blacks also shovel up corn kernels in harvested fields.
     Being different species, brant and blacks have differences, too.  Brant run over water or ground to take flight, while black ducks simply leap into the air and fly away.  Brant fly in loose flocks and long lines, "shoulder to shoulder".  Brant honk hoarsely while female blacks quack loudly.  Brant raise goslings on the Arctic tundra, while black ducks rear offspring in eastern Canada and the United States.  Some female blacks hatch ducklings in Atlantic salt marshes in the United States.           
     Flocks of Atlantic brant and black ducks are striking species in Atlantic Coast salt marshes in winter.  I enjoy experiencing these handsome spirits of those winter habitats.

Mississippi Flyway in Fall

     The shallow channels, mud flats and beds of emergent grasses in Lake Analaska, which is bordered by steep, wooded hills and is located along the Mississippi River in northwestern Wisconsin, are habitats of wonderful mixes of southbound water birds, at least during October and November.  I "have been" to that lovely lake several times in those two months via a live camera and our home computer.  Watching the gatherings of large water birds on the lake, which is a backwater off the Mississippi, has been enjoyable and inspiring to me, just as viewing some of those same birds, in the flesh and feathers, along my home Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
     Not all the birds were along that lake in Wisconsin at once, and some didn't stay there long before pushing farther south for the winter.  American white pelicans, in their thousands, dominated this backwater off the Mississippi during a few weeks in October.  Big and bulky, pelicans plod stoically, but majestically, on mud flats and in the shallows.  Pelicans have boat-like bodies for floating on water, and long beaks and large lower mandible pouches for snaring fish from the water's surface.
     The pelicans in this species work together on the water's surface to snare fish.  Groups of them swim in a line, and daintily dip their beaks in the water at the same time to scoop up the confused and frantic fish.   
     American white pelicans fly strongly, and gracefully, in lines and V's.  They often flap in unison, then glide for several seconds before flapping together again.  When landing on the water, they ski to a stop on their broad, webbed feet.       
     During the latter part of October and into mid-November, flocks of noisy, southbound sandhill cranes settle on the flats and shallows of this backwater off the Mississippi.  They are tundra nesters heading for their wintering grounds in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico.
     Stately sandhill cranes stand about four feet tall, have gray feathering all over, except a red spot on each bird's forehead.  They are elegantly long-necked and long-legged, and wade in shallow water after aquatic invertebrates and vegetation.  They also walk through harvested corn fields to pick up and ingest corn kernels on the ground.  And sometimes in autumn, these magnificent cranes engage in graceful courtship dances; pairs of them leaping and flapping as the partners face each other. 
     Each late afternoon for a few weeks, many sandhills converged on Lake Analaska for the night. But their flocks in fall are nowhere near the size of the northbound hordes of these cranes in March and April along the Platte River in Nebraska.
     Flocks of noisy Canada geese and tundra swans converge in numbers on Lake Analaska in November.  These species of large, elegant waterfowl rest on flats and in the shallows, but fly out, group after group, to harvested corn fields where they scoop up corn kernels on the ground.  These geese and swans are majestic on the wing when flying to and from corn fields and the bodies of water where they rest between feeding forays.  These two kinds of large birds also graze on short grass and green blades of winter rye.       
     In fall, a variety of puddle ducks, including loose flocks of mallards, pintails, American wigeons and gadwalls, "tip-up" among protective emergent grasses and extend their beaks down to water plants on the shallow bottoms of this lake along the Mississippi.  They use their beaks to tear loose that vegetation and bring it to the surface to swallow it and get a breath of air.  These puddlers also shovel up corn kernels in fields.  And wigeons graze on short grass, as do Canada geese.    
     Certain kinds of diving ducks, particularly thousands of buffleheads, and lesser numbers of common goldeneyes, ring-necked ducks and lesser scaup, dove into open, deeper waters to dredge up aquatic vegetation, invertebrates and small mollusks and crustaceans.  It was interesting to see mixed rafts of these diving ducks floating and bobbing on deeper water, while some individuals dove under and others popped to the surface to swallow and get a breath.
     Little gangs of ring-billed gulls, a common, inland kind of gull, fluttered lightly over the flats and shallows each late afternoon as those birds prepared to spend the night roosting on the flats.  They had spent each day searching for anything edible along the lake shores, the nearby Mississippi and on fields between those large bodies of water.  Ring-bills will also eat edible scraps from dumpsters and landfills.
     Up to 60 majestic bald eagles, of every age, formed groups of themselves on flats, large trees fallen into the shallows and standing trees in woods along the lake's shores.  These stately eagles catch fish from larger bodies of water, and scavenge dead animals, including fish washed up on shores.   
     These attractive and migrating water birds on Lake Analaska at the same time were exciting and inspiring to experience in the air, and on the water and mud flats.  There was much to see and hear at once, including flocks of large water birds flying before a sunset, or standing still and silhouetted in water and on the flats at dusk.  It was also neat to hear the birds calling, or splashing water as they fluttered their wings during bath times.      

Adaptable, Common Farmland Birds

     While recently driving in farmland to do errands around New Holland, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in mid-November, it again occurred to me that I was easily seeing the same flocks of wintering birds I always see in local cropland at this time of year.  For example, as I drove by a couple of crab apple trees in a hedgerow of sapling trees, bushes and tall weeds and grasses along a clear-water stream that day, I noticed flocks of American robins and starlings flying in and out of those crab apple trees.  I stopped for several minutes and watched those two kinds of bids eating some of the many yellow fruits clinging to those trees and lying on the ground under them.  And as I watched those birds ingesting crab apples, I thought about some of the other kinds of flock birds I repeatedly see wintering in Lancaster County.
     All these handsome and interesting bird species live in Lancaster County's farmland the year around, and raise young here.  All are adaptable, common in this area and large enough to be readily noticed.  And each kind has its daily habits, food sources and nightly roosts.
     Though unrelated, wintering robin and starling flocks are often seen together in cropland hedgerows where they consume a variety of berries from trees, shrubbery and vines.  And both species eat invertebrates from lawns, when they can, and roost in planted, wind-breaking coniferous trees on lawns during winter nights.  These two attractive species converge in winter because they have similar needs and body forms during that bitter season.
     I also regularly see flocks of related and petite mourning doves and rock pigeons eating waste corn kernels in harvested corn fields through winter.  Sometimes, both species flutter down, at the same time, on whistling wings, through snow falls, to the fields to feed.  Both species walk about, with heads bobbing at each step, among the stubble and light snow, to pick up kernels with their beaks, one kernel at a time.  The doves are more difficult to see because they have brown feathering, which blends them into the color of the corn stubble.
     When not feeding, however, the doves and pigeons retire to different roosts to rest, and digest the kernels they ingested.  The doves perch on roadside wires where they are easily seen, and in coniferous trees.  And the pigeons retire to the coned tops of farmland silos, the only local birds that do that.  However, doves spend winter nights in evergreen trees, while pigeons do the same in barns and under bridges.   
     Gatherings of wintering mallard ducks and majestic Canada geese congregate on farmland ponds and creeks.  Both these aquatic species eat much water vegetation, but also get food in nearby human-made, land habitats.  Both kinds consume grass on lawns, and shovel up corn kernels among the stubble of harvested corn fields, where they encounter doves and pigeons.  Like doves and pigeons, mallards and Canadas can be spotted dropping through snowfalls to acres of corn stubble to feed.  Sometimes, they have to shovel their bills under the snow to get their food.  When full, the mallards and geese wing back to their watery roosts on ponds and waterways.  The elegant geese always honk and bugle boisterously when flying in V shapes and long lines from place to place.     
     Though commonplace in Lancaster County cropland the year around, these types of adaptable, interesting birds are always welcome sights in farmland, at least to me.  They add daily life and intrigue to that human-made habitat these lovely birds adjusted to.