ROADSIDE JUNGLES

     During late summer and into autumn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, many country roadsides that aren't regularly mowed are jungles of adaptable and common, tall vegetation, including grasses, weeds and flowering plants.  And some of those "jungles" stretch for many yards along the roads, and between blacktop and crops such as corn, soybeans and alfalfa.  

     Those long, lean strips of high grasses and weeds along rural roads are alive with small, adaptable wildlife, including butterflies, grasshoppers, field crickets, and bees.  Those pretty and interesting little critters get food and shelter in those roadside jungles through summer and fall.  

     Foxtail, wire, Timothy and redtop grasses are loaded with seeds that will feed field voles (mice) and seed-eating, farmland birds, including various kinds of sparrows and finches, rock pigeons and mourning doves, and horned larks during fall and winter.  

     But in late summer and autumn, differential, red-leg and spur-throated grasshoppers feed on the grasses' innumerable leaves.  I see those many grasshoppers leap away when I walk along a country road.  Some of those grasshoppers, and voles, are eaten during the day by American kestrels and at night by striped skunks, red foxes, coyotes and screech owls.

     Wood chucks that dig burrows in roadside banks and cottontail rabbits that live among the tall, roadside plants also consume those grasses and other vegetation.  Some of those mammals are preyed on by red foxes, coyotes, red-tailed hawks and great horned owls that patrol the roadsides at night, except the hawks.

     High weeds, including red root and lamb's quarters mostly, are also loaded with tiny seeds that feed the same mice and birds that ingest grass seeds.    

     Added beauties of those tall weeds in autumn are their leaves and stems turning red, and the large black and yellow garden spiders spreading their huge, orb webs between weeds.  Those webs snare some of the insects that live among the tall, roadside plants.  The hairy wolf spiders, by the way, run down and capture field crickets and other kinds of invertebrates on the ground of roadside jungles.    

     Bumble bees, honey bees, cabbage white butterflies, yellow clearwing butterflies, silver-spotted skippers, meadow fritillaries and monarch butterflies regularly buzz and flutter among the pink flowers of red clovers, the yellow blooms of goldenrods and the white ones of asters in late summer and autumn to consume nectar and pollen.  Those insects add intrigue to roadside jungles and the lovely butterflies add beauty to them.  

     Common milkweed sprouts along some rural roadsides in abundance, and many insect species visit their flowers to sip nectar and ingest pollen earlier in summer.  But late in summer, the last generation of monarch butterfly caterpillars eat milkweed leaves, pupate, emerge as beautiful, winged adults and begin their only trip to Mexico to escape the northern winter.

     Poison ivy, Virginia creeper and deadly nightshade vines and staghorn sumac and sassafras trees grow along some stretches of country roadsides.  Each of those vines or trees produces berries that are consumed by field voles and berry-eating cropland birds, including eastern bluebirds and starlings.  All those plants' leaves turn to strikingly warm colors in fall.  And the nightshade and sumacs produce red berries that are attractive to see in autumn.        

     Interestingly during October, differential grasshoppers and woolly bear caterpillars are spotted crossing rural roads.  The grasshoppers are looking for places to lay eggs in the ground, while the caterpillars are searching for sheltered spots to overwinter. 

     Human-made roadside jungles are long, lean oases of food and shelter, in the midst of cropland, for a variety of smaller, adaptable wildlife, including during late summer and autumn.  And their flowers, butterflies and other living beings are a joy for us to visit in that farmland.