WILDLIFE IN CATTAILS, THICKETS AND OAKS

     Several acres of human-made habitats just outside of New Holland, Pennsylvania are inhabited by several species of adaptable wildlife.  This environment is composed of two quarter-acre retention basins filled with cattails, overgrown fields, thickets, and pin oak trees planted on a large, regularly-mowed lawn, all on former farmland.  Lush and lovely in its greenness during summer, this built environment provides food and shelter to the attractive and interesting wildlife adjusted to it, as long as it remains at least partly overgrown.

     Many kinds of wild plants and animals survive in less than ideal conditions, such as this habitat outside New Holland.  Each type of habitat has its own community of adaptable vegetation and wildlife.  And each wild plant and creature is adjusted to a particular niche that meets its survival needs.  It's amazing and enlightening how many intriguing species of plants and critters have adapted to human-made habitats.  Nature quickly restores itself, when left alone to do so.  The adaptable have a future.

     Up to five pairs of attractive red-winged blackbirds raise young in the cattail retention basins each year.  The cattails sowed themselves from airborne seeds, and now dominate those basins that collect rain water.  The black-feathered, male red-wings, that sport red shoulder patches, are striking perched on top of cattails while repeatedly singing "kon-ga-reeee".  Meanwhile, the equally lovely female red-wings are busy building grass nests on cattail stalks, incubating eggs and helping the males feed the resulting offspring.   

     At dusk, most July evenings, several male common toads repeatedly call "wwaaah" from the shallows of the cattail basins.  I see some of those males, perched handsomely upright on the edges of the shallow water, with their throats bulged out while they sing.  The toads' calling adds to the wildness of this people-dominated habitat.          

     Several acres of overgrown fields are covered with tall grass, and pretty patches of native common milkweeds, and alien Canada thistles and red clovers, all of which have lovely, pink blossoms by late June.  Various kinds of bees and butterflies visit those flowers to sip sugary nectar, their only food.  I sometimes see a few to several monarch butterflies in those fields to sip nectar, and lay eggs on milkweed plants.  

     A couple acres of thickets, composed of shrubbery, young trees and vines, stand near the fields and cattail basins.  Cottontail rabbits, wood chucks and striped skunks live in that thicket year around.  And song sparrows, gray catbirds and brown thrashers nest among those thickets each summer.

     A few gray squirrels live in the pin oaks on the lawn by the cattail basins.  Their main food, of course, is acorns.  And they build nests of leaves to shelter in at night, and to birth their young.

     A couple pairs of American robins raise young in those elegant pin oaks, and the attractive robins, purple grackles and blue jays forage for invertebrates on the lawn under those oaks during summer.  The jays also search for acorns there, starting in September.

     This mix of human-made habitats, in a small area, has drawn a mix of interesting vegetation and wildlife.  And each adaptable species, everywhere in the world, is tied to its niche, almost no matter where that niche is, including in built environments.  By colonizing human-made habitats, adaptable kinds of life have more room to increase their populations, and people have more opportunity to enjoy those species of life, right at home.  

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