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FIELDS OF ABUNDANCE

     Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has a lot of cropland.  The major crops here are hay, corn, soybeans and rye, all of which provide food and cover for several species of adaptable wildlife.  Those crops are a wedding between people and wildlife, particularly for white-tailed deer that graze in all of them.      Originally from Europe, red clover or alfalfa, or both species in the same fields, compose local hay fields.  Several kinds of wildlife ingest parts of hay plants before that vegetation is cut and baled for livestock food in winter.  Wood chucks, cottontail rabbits and deer nibble the foliage and flowers of the lush hay plants.  A variety of bees, butterflies and other kinds of interesting insects sip sugary nectar from the lovely flowers, pollinating those blooms in the process, and making hay fields alive with many buzzing, or fluttering, insects.  Yellow clearwing butterfly caterpillars ingest the leaves of clover ...
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THE UNIQUE MARINE IGUANAS

      Marine iguanas are unique, three-foot-long lizards endemic to the Galapagos Islands.  They have a few characteristics that make them interesting.  They are the only lizards on Earth to ingest algae from rocks on the bottom of shallow Pacific Ocean waters, just off the lava-strewn edges of the Galapagos.  They can stay underwater for up to 30 minutes, while grazing on algae, as sheep do in meadows.  Since they take in much salt water while ingesting algae in the ocean, they have special salt-expelling glands near their nostrils that "sneeze" out excess salt.  And they can slow their heart rates to avoid detection by nearby, predatory sharks.  Many aspects of nature are beyond belief.      Marine iguanas are cold-blooded, as all reptiles are.  And they are as dark as the lava rocks they congregate on to rest and soak up warming sunlight between feeding forays in the ocean.  Their coloration camouflages them agains...
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BROWN BEARS FATTENING ON MOTHS

     Recently I saw a television program that depicted brown bears, also known as grizzly bears, during summer, using their great strength to move loose rocks on rocky slopes of the Rocky Mountains near Yellowstone National Park in their search for gatherings of brown, one-inch-long army cutworm moths to ingest.  Those small moths are loaded with fat, which the bears need to survive the coming five winter months of no available food.  Bears need to find fatty foods, including salmon, berries, these moths and other foods to have enough fat on their bodies to survive five months without eating.        Probably sometime in the past, a few brown bears searching for food in summer happened upon millions of moths hiding by day under the loose rocks and began to eat them.  Mother bears passed the knowledge of when and where to find those moths to their cubs who kept up that summer tradition for who knows how many generations.    ...
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AUTUMN BEAUTIES ALONG COUNTRY ROADS

      Late September into October is a pretty time of year in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Orange pumpkins decorate their fields, a variety of colorful flowers bloom along rural roadsides, and in fields, and red berries and colored leaves are striking along country roads.      Rural roadsides are about six feet deep, on average, and innumerable miles long.  Some are mowed occasionally, but none are plowed, allowing several kinds of wild plants, and wildlife, long narrow homes between roads and fields; habitats we can readily see from passing vehicles.          Local country roadsides are covered with a variety of lush vegetation, wall to wall.  Some are dominated by two kinds of foxtail grass and redtop grass, all of which are pretty to see, and loaded with seeds on their tops.  Redtop grass seeds have a red or purple sheen that is most attractive in sunlight.  Many foxtail and redtop seeds will be ...
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MERLINS

      Fast and powerful fliers to catch small birds in mid-air, merlins are exciting to see in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania cropland, which I do occasionally during their April and October migrations.  These handsome, dove-sized falcons, related to peregrines, are wild, exciting additions to the prairies, shorelines and human-made farmland of the United States when they migrate north to their nesting areas and south to their wintering places.  During those spring and fall months in Lancaster County farmland, I see them perched on roadside poles and wires to watch for horned larks, starlings, sparrows and other kinds of small birds, or zipping swiftly and low across fields to scare up those same birds in fields.  Merlins also sweep quickly over mud flats and beaches to chase up sandpipers and plovers, to catch one of those shorebirds at a time.          Merlins are built for catching small birds on the wing in open habitats....
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LIFE ON A GOLF COURSE

     We stayed a few days in a motel bordering a golf course in the peaceful country of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley near staunton, Virginia.  Of course the golf course landscape was carpeted by regularly mowed grass, studded with rows of planted white pine trees, and sported a quarter-acre pond, partly flanked with thickets of young trees, shrubbery, vines and weeds, all of which I could see from our second story motel room.  The thickets partly-shrouding the pond were the only real wildlife habitat on the golf course, but I wanted to experience what adaptable creatures could live on a golf course.       When I could, I sat by the window of our motel room with a 16 power pair of binoculars and watched for wildlife on the neighboring golf course, which was no wildlife sanctuary.  But I was curious to know what wildlife could live on that mostly manicured, human-made habitat, and other golf courses like it.       ...
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WHITE-TAILED DEER

     White-tailed deer are entering their rut, or breeding time, in early October in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.  At that time they are more visible than any other time of year because they move around more, the females in little groups, looking for mates, and are less cautions.  Throughout the year, however, they are most safe in suburban areas where hunting is not allowed.          Through the seasons, over many years, I have enjoyed seeing the adaptable, stately white-tails, in the flesh, browsing on twigs, buds and leaves in local woods and older suburban areas with their many planted trees and shrubbery, and grazing on grass, hay, and corn and soybean leaves in croplands.  And, in recent years, I enjoy seeing white-tailed deer, close-up, every day, day and night, by live cameras in wildlife refuges and our computer screen.        To me, white-tailed deer are the most elegant, graceful,...
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