natureswondersbyclyde

      In May, when I was in sixth grade, my class went on a field trip to Valley Forge in Pennsylvania.  And when I stepped from the bus at that national park, I heard the sweet, accelerating trills of a few birds that I thought, at that time, were bluebirds coming from overgrown, weedy fields.  Later, when I learned bird songs better, I realized those lovely trills were uttered by birds called field sparrows.      Several kinds of sparrows nest in southeastern Pennsylvania, and the males of each kind sing beautiful songs to proclaim nesting territories, and attract mates to those spots to raise young.  Each of those lovely songs adds to the beauty and intrigue of the habitat each sparrow nests in.  And those songs add to the excitements and joys of spring in this my home area.  People are far more likely to hear these camouflaged sparrows, than see them in the dense shelter they hide in.      Parents of all the follo...

      In a few days the end of April, every year, whole deciduous woods in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, miracuously turn from tree-bark gray to leaf-green.  Innumerable buds of deciduous trees and shrubbery, including on oaks, maples, beeches, birches, hickories, spicebushes and other woody species of plants, suddenly open, almost overnight, and their small leaves grow rapidly.        Amazingly to me, the buds of every tree and bush of a species open at the same time.  It seems every living being has an inner clock, or its genetic code responds to lengths of light per day, or average temperatures, which is a miracle.      Tree and shrub foliage, like all green plants, is packed with green chlorophyll that adds beauty to landscapes.  Using energy from the sun's rays, green chloroplasts miracuously combine carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water to make sugar, the plants' food for growth.  Leaves emi...

     This April, I saw a chipping sparrow in a planted row of arborvitae trees in a neighbor's yard in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Probably that chipper, and its mate, will nest in one of those evergreen trees, as I have seen chippies regularly do in the past.        Other kinds of small birds, including house finches, American goldfinches, northern cardinals, mourning doves, northern mockingbirds, American robins and small groups of purple grackles also raise young in sheltering arborvitae because of the conifers' dense layering of small, flat needles that protect those birds from weather and predators, including sharp-shinned hawks, crows and house cats.        All those attractive, interesting bird species build open cradles of twigs and dried grass and place those nurseries on forks of limbs.  And those birds add more life to suburban lawns during spring and summer.       Arborvitae, or no...

     Periwinkle vines, grape hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley are adaptable, cultivated flowering plants in the United States that have much in common.  They are all planted perennials that have lovely flowers in April and spread readily from where they were planted, as if they are wild flowers.         All these plants have beautiful, interesting blossoms, which is why they are abundantly planted on lawns and in flower gardens.        Periwinkles, or Myrtles, for example, are a native, sprawling ground cover that helps halt soil erosion and provides shelter for small wildlife, including a large variety of invertebrates.        This ground-hugging vine produces several purple blooms, each one with five petals.  The bases of those petals together form a star shape in the middle of the flower they create.  Each intriguing blossom resembles a one-inch pinwheel that almost seems to spi...

     A successional, wooded bottomland in the forested Welsh Mountains near New Holland, Pennsylvania is a lovely place to visit in mid-April because of flowers and leaves developing on trees, shrubbery and smaller plants in the moist soil of those woods.        Several kinds of deciduous trees and other, smaller kinds of plants obviously adapted well to damp soil and shade.  Dominant trees in those low woods are black gums, red maples, shagbark hickory, black walnut, pin oaks, white oaks and tulip trees.  Spicebushes are common in the shrub layer.  On the dead-leaf covered forest floor, skunk cabbage leaves carpet lower spots on the woodland floor with their tall, broad, lush leaves in the middle of April.  Leaves of May apple plants grow in colonies here and there, and looking like the umbrellas of elves gathering in the woods.  Little groups of fiddle heads on cinnamon ferns grow and unfurl near the skunk cabbage and Ma...

     The dog family is a successful one, with many adaptable species in several habitats all over the world, except Antarctica.  Species in that widespread family include gray wolves, jackals, dingoes, Arctic foxes, the many breeds of domestic dogs, and sea wolves.      Sea wolves are a race of gray wolves, but are a bit smaller and browner than their ancestors.  Sea wolves have lived for thousands of years on islands and shorelines along the Pacific Ocean where it washes ashore on the coasts of Canada and Alaska.  About ninety percent of sea wolf food is from the Pacific, including sea otters, seals, salmon, clams, fish eggs and washed up, dead whales, squid and other ocean critters.  When the tide goes out, they check beaches for stranded sea creatures.  They even wade and swim in surf in a search for food.  Today, members of the dog family fill niches from the Pacific Ocean shores to the beagle sleeping on your couch.  ...