natureswondersbyclyde

     Red-winged blackbirds and cattails go together like peas and carrots and peanut butter and jelly. Red-wings mostly nest in cattail marshes, large and small, and also among tall grasses and ten-foot-tall phragmites.       Red-wings are striking birds.  Males are jet-black with red shoulder patches.  Black is an intimidating non-color that repulses other male red-wings from each other's nesting area.  And black helps chase away crows, hawks, mink, house cats and other kinds of predators that might consume young red-wings.  The red epaulets are displayed when the wings are raised as visual threats to other male red-wings when each male sways on top of a tall, wind-blown plant and repeatedly sings "kon-ga-reeeee" to establish his "ownership" of a patch of cattails or reeds".  Male red-wings also regularly dive-bomb and swoop ferociously at predators to scare them away from their mates' nurseries, and the young sheltering in th...

      There are several kinds of sunfish native to North America, but pumpkinseed sunfish and long-eared sunfish are the prettiest, to attract the finny girls for spawning.  And they are handsome and interesting to us during summer.       Being closely related, the striking males of these species look much alike with wavy, light-blue lines on their gills, a black flap protruding from the end of each gill, blue freckles on their flanks and orange bellies.  But pumpkinseeds have a red spot at the rear of each gill, which long-ears don't.  And the slightly larger long-ears' longer black extension of each gill is partly surrounded by a thin, white, curved line.      Look-alike females of both kinds are less colorful than their mates.  And each female has faint, wavy, light-blue lines on their gills, and highly visible, vertical, dark bars on their flanks that camouflage them, which is important because females lay the egg...

      April showers bring April and May flowers, including along country roadsides in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania during those springtime months.  I know a 200 yard stretch of rural roadside in this county that cuts through a successional, bottomland woods.  The roadside shoulders are, at least, annually mowed about ten feet back from the blacktop to the woodland edge on both sides of the road, keeping those sun-filled edges clear of young trees and shrubbery.  Those sunny, roadside edges, therefore, are full of tall grasses and sedges, and several kinds of flowering plants that bloom during April and May.  Those edges host a wedding of woodland, lawn and farmland blooming plants, making a wonderful, colorful wild bouquet of lovely blossoms in the high grass and sunshine.       Each time I visited those sunny roadsides, there was a different combination of flowers than the week before because each species of plant has its own tim...

      Two retention basins, one about an acre in size and the other around a quarter-acre, and both full of water in early May of 2026 when I visited them, lie at the bottom of four shallow slopes.  They were built to retain rain water and let that water drain away slowly, without eroding soil.  The slopes, totaling twelve acres, were planted to grass that is regularly mowed and a planted line of red maple trees on one slope and a planted row of white pines on another one.  Three weeping willow trees grow from the edges of the basins.        The grass helps retain soil and the trees add beauty to the lawn around the temporary pools of water.  Furthermore,  the twelve acres of short grass and the basins together were banquet tables and homes to a variety of birds and mammals when I visited them.      Little groups of highly adaptable American robins, purple grackles and starlings were scattered across the law...

      Mourning geckos are unique, interesting, little lizards that live in trees on islands in the tropical and sub-tropical Indian and South Pacific Oceans.  Three to four inches long, including their tails, these geckos' smooth scales range from light to dark tan, with even darker spots on their backs and tails, which camouflages them for their safety from predators in the trees during daylight hours.        These geckos can change their colors as they move about by day, to remain camouflaged.  They are mostly nocturnal, however, which hides them from predators while they search for insects, spiders and other invertebrates to eat, plus fruit, flower nectar and pollen, and other small edibles.        Some mourning geckos get blown from trees into the oceans during storms and high wind.  But leafy branches, tree bark and whole trees are also dumped into the oceans.  Some geckos climb onto the resulting ...

      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...