LARKS AND PLOVERS IN FALL

      One afternoon in late October of 2020, I saw a small group of golden plovers sweep in rapid flight low over a recently harvested potato field that was mostly bare ground, and also inhabited by resident horned larks.  The plovers were exciting to see because they had come from the Arctic tundra where they nest, and were migrating to bare soil and shorelines in South America to escape the northern winter.  They stopped on bare ground here, and elsewhere, to fill up on invertebrates to have fuel for the next part of their journey.  

     I don't see flocks of horned larks or golden plovers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's bare ground fields until those birds fly swiftly in little flocks over those fields, or across rural roads in front of my vehicle.  And I seldom see golden plover flocks here at all, though I have seen several groups locally over many years, simply by luck.  But I was in the right place at the right time, and was lucky.     

     Some horned larks are permanent residents in bare fields, including in Lancaster County farmland; even raising young on some of them.  But other larks are migrants, sweeping south in fall, from nesting grounds farther north, in their search for more congenial weather through winter.  But all golden plovers on those same fields are migrants here during September and October.  Both these species of open country birds walk over bare ground and feed on a variety of invertebrates they find in denuded soil.

     Horned larks and golden plovers are mostly brown, which allows them to blend into the bare soil to the point of being invisible until they move or fly.  The larks, however, have attractive yellow and black face markings that identify and beautify them.      

     Horned larks and golden plovers settle on harvested tobacco, potato and corn fields that leave the soil with little vegetation, until rows of planted winter rye sprout green blades in September as a cover crop through winter.  The rye sprouts' short blades stop growing when cold sets in, leaving the soil only partly covered through winter.  

     South-bound merlin and peregrine falcons also migrate over bare ground fields in October.  And they are always on the look-out for birds to catch and consume, including larks and plovers.  I've seen several merlins and peregrines perched on roadside poles in Lancaster County cropland over the years, as those birds watch for prey in the fields.

     By early November, the last of the plovers leave this area to migrate to South America to escape the northern winter.  But horned larks remain on bare fields all winter, eating weed and grass seeds and waste grain in those open, human-made habitats.  On winter nights, the sparrow-sized larks hunker on the lee sides of clods of soil or snow drifts, the only shelters from cold winds they have in those fields.  

     Some winters, a few each of snow buntings and Lapland longspurs join flocks of horned larks in farmland and other open country in the United States, including in Lancaster County.  The three species  bound low in flight together across cropland to various feeding sites, all day, every day, all through winter.   

     Seemingly barren, bare ground fields are not completely lifeless in autumn in Lancaster County, and elsewhere.  And they are not through winter either.  But a person must have patience and watch those fields carefully to spot life on them.  

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