natureswondersbyclyde

     Carolina wrens and northern mockingbirds hail from different families of birds, yet they have some like characteristics because of their similar lifestyles in shared habitats.  Their two species converged because their mutual thicket and woodland edge habitat of sapling trees, shrubbery and vines molded them into similar beings.  And now they are also prominent species on suburban lawns throughout the eastern United States the year around.        Both these adaptable species of small, attractive birds are originally from the American South.  But mockers, as a species, pushed north in the 1950's, and wrens did so during the 1970's.  Now both kinds are in the north to stay, bringing their brands of entertaining beauty, song and intrigue to northern suburban lawns, as well as lawns in the South.        Carolina wrens and northern mockingbirds are handsome in plain, camouflaged ways.  The wrens ar...

     Every winter, I sometimes see a handsome male belted kingfisher or a stately great blue heron, or both kinds at once, trying to catch fish from a human-made, half-acre pond at the end of our suburban street in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Those adaptable and hardy birds persist there until the water freezes over, which it does most winters.        Kingfishers and herons share shoreline habitats along impoundments and waterways, year round, throughout much of the United States to catch their food of fish, crayfish, frogs, tadpoles and other aquatic creatures.  And because of that, they share a few characteristics, though they are not related, or even look similar in build.  However, they both have bluish-gray feathering, which camouflages them around water.  And both have long, thick beaks for grabbing victims.      Each of these attractive species is built for how it snares prey, and both are interesting to w...

     In the middle of October, 2021, I saw many thousands of attractive northern pintail ducks on human-made impoundments in the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in California's Central Valley.  I saw the refuge and the pintails by a live camera and our home computer screen.  I've never seen so many pintails in one place at one time.  And, perhaps as an added bonus, by mid-November, I saw thousands of elegant snow geese in that same refuge.  Together, the pintails and snows, by sheer numbers, dominated the refuge's built ponds.  They keep the refuge alive with their comings and goings between ponds and feeding fields and marshes.      During October until mid-December, via our computer screen, I was thrilled to watch great flocks of handsome geese and puddle ducks of several kinds in their natural, wintering habitat at Sacramento Refuge.  In early October, I commonly and happily saw mixed flocks of stately white-fronted gees...

     November is THEE time to experience post-breeding swans, geese and ducks in North America.  At that time they gather in great, mixed flocks on lakes, marshes and rivers, from coast to coast in the United States and feed on a variety of foods, depending on the species.  They build up fat reserves and hardiness for the rough, winter weather to come.  And all species of these waterfowl are handsome, and exciting to experience in each kind's natural habitat.         I watched gatherings of tundra swans, Canada geese and a variety of ducks on Lake Onalaska, a large, quiet back-water off the Mississippi River in northwestern Wisconsin, via a live camera and our home computer screen.  I watched from the middle of November until December 13, 2021.        The elegant, graceful swans, and their young, came from their nesting territories on the Arctic tundra.  Most of the majestic, beautiful geese arrive...

     The disturbances of plowing, planting and harvesting large acreages of open cropland in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania make a tough, human-made habitat for wildlife to permanently live in.  And winter conditions make it even more difficult for those wild creatures to live exclusively in big, cultivated fields with few trees and fewer hedgerows to provide shelter against severe weather and predators.  But field voles (mice) and sparrow-sized horned larks live abundantly in cropland with little cover the year round.      Field voles are chunky and short-tailed, with gray-brown fur and small eyes.  They live and raise young in chewed-grass nests in little burrows in the soil of fields, and along rural roadside shoulders and banks.  Roadsides are mowed occasionally, but not plowed, allowing seed and berry-bearing plants time to grow to maturity and bear their fruits, many of which are consumed by mice.  Voles also ingest corn kerne...