natureswondersbyclyde

     Through a live camera and our home computer screen, on February1, 2026, this Pennsylvanian was happy to see large flocks of cackling geese, with sprinklings of Canada geese, snow geese, white-fronted geese and mallard ducks on the mostly frozen Platte River in Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary in southcentral Nebraska.  Those waterfowl species carpeted the flats and shallows of the broad, shallow Platte, wall to wall, to rest, preen and socialize between feeding times in nearby harvested cornfields.  But they will move on to their nesting territories as soon as spring catches up to them.  Meanwhile, those great gatherings of handsome waterfowl were inspiring to see and hear on the computer screen at home.  Few cackling geese are seen here in the eastern United States.          On February 2, I was thrilled to see excellent, close-up views of the elegant geese and ducks on our computer screen.  Masses of stately cackling g...

      Five kinds of birch tree species in northeastern North America include black, yellow, gray, paper and river birches.  The beautiful bark of these birches is most noticeable and enjoyable in winter when the trees are devoid of foliage.        Being related, these birches have several traits in common, other than attractive bark.  They are all trees on the small side.  Male and female flowers are on each tree in all these species, and open in spring.  Male blooms, (catkins) dangle two to three inches from twigs and sway gracefully in the wind that also disperses their pollen to female blossoms.  Female flowers are upright and one inch tall.  And each female bloom, when pollinated, produces a stack of tiny, two-winged seeds that blow away on the wind.        Each type of birch tree has its own niche, which spreads the species, and almost eliminates competition for space in the sun.  Bl...

     Daily, from March 4 to March 9, 2026, I had been watching a few kinds of migrant waterfowl species gathering on large impoundments in Blackwater Wildlife Refuge in Maryland and Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Pennsylvania, through live computers at each location, 24/7, and our home computer screen by switching the computer back and forth between those refuges.  The thousands each of majestic tundra swans, Canada geese and northern pintail ducks at both refuges, and thousands of handsome snow geese at Middle Creek were noticeably restless and constantly vocal, day and night.  And adding to the excitement of experiencing those stately birds was their flocks daily going and coming from nearby feeding fields of winter rye and corn kernels in harvested corn fields.  All those elegant, migrating birds obviously rested on those impoundments a short time before migrating farther north to their annual nesting territories.  But they were exciting a...

       While driving through a foggy, soggy, bottomland woods of deciduous trees one rainy afternoon in early March of 2026, I noticed several trees had dead leaves still clinging to their twigs.  I stopped to admire more closely the ginger-hued foliage on pin oak trees and white oak trees and pale-beige-colored leaves on American beech trees in that woodland.  Those dead, dried leaves still attached to their twig moorings added another bit of color to the gray woods, as they had all winter.  And I could see how many trees of each kind were living in that bottomland woods because of the dried foliage still clinging to them.      As I admired the dead foliage on hose trees I remembered that pin oaks, white oaks and beeches have much in common.  Obviously, they share wooded bottomland habitats with their moist soil.  They all bear nuts that are consumed by squirrels, deer, bears, jays, wild turkeys and other kinds of woodland wil...

      Beauty in nature is more than sunshine, flowers and bird songs.  Its also great gatherings of wintering ducks, geese and swans, preparing to migrate north, floating on large, human-made  impoundments, or sitting on their ice, on cloudy, foggy days in March.  A picture of gloom, perhaps, to some people, but another beauty to me in that wild dreariness.       Fog is dangerous to transportation, but it is also a part of nature.  It is unique in its beauty that does not happen every day.       On the afternoon of March 4, 2026, I was looking at the 400-acre lake at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania by their live camera and our computer screen to see what species of waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) were resting on it between feeding forays in nearby rye and harvested cornfields.  That impoundment was mostly covered with ice, but there was an ever-growing strip of open wate...

     On February 18, 2026, about 100,000 elegant snow geese landed on the 400-acre impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Pennsylvania to rest during their annual, early-spring migration north to their nesting territories on the Arctic tundra.  But because the stately, restless snow geese shift about every few days to find fresh feeding fields, "only" 60,000, (an estimate), snow geese rested on Middle Creek's lake, which stirred excitement among local birders again.  But that number should increase to over 100,000 snow geese by early March, which is about the peak of their numbers at Middle Creek, as it has every March for the last 40 years or more.       The flighty snow geese are on and off any impoundment, day and night.  They fly out to fields twice a day, usually.  Flying bald eagles put whole great flocks to speedy flight.  And, sometimes, the whole tremendous host of snows take flight from a lake...