natureswondersbyclyde

      Some bird ballads in southeastern Pennsylvania in summer are beautiful beyond words.  Songs of male birds proclaim territory, repulse other males of the same kind and attract females of each species to the males' territories to raise young.  And those same bird ballads make times outdoors more enjoyable and inspiring for us.  Following are some of my favorite bird songs in southeastern Pennsylvania.  These species are adaptable and common, which benefits them and us.      The short, soft warbles of male eastern bluebirds are lovely, and soothing to hear.  One can hear their pretty notes and admire their strikingly blue and rusty feathering, as they look for nesting cavities in abandoned woodpecker holes, or other tree hollows, or nesting boxes erected for them, in which to raise young.  These bluebirds prefer weedy habitats in farm country in which to raise offspring.  I first heard and saw these lovely birds searchi...

     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 ...