BIRDS ADJUSTING TO SNOW

      About a foot of snow fell on southeastern Pennsylvania on January 31 and February 1 and 2 of 2021 and local birds adjusted to that snowfall.  I made it a point to see how those birds adapted at home, in fields around New Holland, Pennsylvania and the main impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Refuge.    

     Birds in our suburban lawn, including northern cardinals, house sparrows, mourning doves, white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos and other species, seemed panicky and fed on seeds at bird feeders more than usual.  Swarms of birds were at those feeders at once, instinctively filling up for possible hard times ahead.

     I drove to familiar locations in cropland near home for over an hour during the early afternoon of February third to see what field birds were doing since the fields and their seeds were buried under snow.  From past experience , I should be seeing flocks of horned larks feeding on seeds and tiny stones along roadsides where snow plows scraped up soil on the shoulders of country roads along with the snow.  As I drove along slowly, several flocks of larks suddenly exploded in flight from road shoulders right in front of my car, bound low over the fields a short way and landed on the snow-covered fields.  Stopping to scan those birds with binoculars, I discovered a few Lapland longspurs, down from the far north for the winter, in a couple of lark gatherings.  Both those species of birds are mostly brown, which camouflages them well along the roadside shoulders.  And they were along the rural roads because that's where available seeds are until some of the snow melts off the croplands.        

     I also drove to running brooks in that same farmland to see Wilson's snipe and song sparrows that are always there in winter to eat invertebrates, and killdeer plovers and water pipits that would be chased off the fields by the snow covering their food supplies of invertebrates and seeds.  I found all four of those open-ground species along a couple of brooks as I thought I would.  And I saw an unexpected, small group of savannah sparrows along one brook.  All those birds were along the brooks to ingest invertebrates and seeds that were still available to them because of the running water.  And all these birds, too, are camouflaged, making them difficult to see before soil and dried grasses.

     Wintering flocks of tundra swans, snow geese and Canada geese were sitting on ice and snow around a few tiny puddles of open water on the main lake at Middle Creek.  Prior to the freeze and snowfall, all those elegant waterfowl species had been resting on the water of that impoundment between feeding forays to consume kernels of corn in harvested corn fields.  

     After the snow fall, some of the waterfowl left Middle Creek, but remaining birds, beautiful and majestic on the lake's ice and snow, created a spectacular picture in bleak, but breath-taking, winter scenery, amply enhanced by the snow on lake and fields.  

     Most of the time through those few days, the sky was gray, with yellow and pink tinges of sunlight.  Dark-gray woods and tall, beige-colored weeds and grasses encircled the lake, adding to its winter beauty.

     The hardy and magnificent swans and geese sat comfortably, all day, every day, in cold wind on the open ice of that large lake with no protection, but their ample, insulating feathering.  Twice daily, they left the frozen impoundment to feed on corn in snow-covered fields.  And all the while on the ice, and in the cold wind, one could hear the swans and geese constantly calling.  All voices together are a cry of the wild.

     Beautiful sunsets, each one different than the other, enhanced the scenery at Middle Creek with its resting waterfowl on ice, during the evenings of February third and fourth.  The sunset on the third was enhanced by gray, pink-edged clouds and golden, low-slanting sunlight that flooded woods, fields and the bird-studded, frozen lake, with a flock of snow geese swirling white in that sunshine down to the lake.  The sunset on the fourth was red in the west without clouds, but still involved a flooding of sunlight across the landscape.   

     Soon spring-like weather will overwhelm southeastern Pennsylvania and the ice and snow will melt away.  Then all these birds will go back to their regular habits when snow and ice are not factors to deal with.  But it is interesting how these creatures adapt to changing conditions for their survival.