natureswondersbyclyde

     Late in March of 2023, while driving through Lancaster County Pennsylvania farmland, I saw a few kinds of short, flowering plants blooming along rural roadsides, including dandelions, veronicas, purple dead nettles, henbit and whitlow grass, all of which are from Europe, and adapted to disturbed soil.  These are some of the first wild flowers I see blossoming on lawns, fields and along roadsides every spring in this area.  Though these plants are more abundant in lawns and fields, those along public country roadsides are more accessible to many people.        These small plants grow close to the ground where they get sunlight, but avoid the cold winds of March and early April.  Their blooms peer out from lush, green jungles of their own foliage, grass and garlic.        Lancaster County's extensive fields at that time are barren, with few trees, and fields of bare ground, green shoots of winter rye, or corn stubble from last year's harvest.  Horned larks live in such barre

          Spring is born from the chilly womb of winter.  I've been watching Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary on the Platte River in southcentral Nebraska through a live camera on site and our computer screen from mid-February to the middle of March of this year.      The Platte River at Rowe is broad and shallow, with several braids of river among many bare mudflats and flats covered with tall, beige grasses.  Both the deep, overgrown shores of the Platte at Rowe are mostly covered by tall, beige grass, broadly positioned between the river and rows of gray trees behind the grass.  All this creates a natural, wild look as when this area was wild prairie.  Rowe Sanctuary is a beautiful place.      Not surprising, I saw few birds and mammals when the Platte was frozen "wall to wall" in mid-February of 2023.  However, I was excited to see a few each of white-tailed deer, and scavenging bald eagles and coyotes on the ice, grassy flats and overgrown river banks.      But when the

     While driving through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland to do errands on a sunny afternoon in March of this year, I stopped and used my binoculars to watch a flock of stately Canada geese grazing on bright-green shoots of winter rye plants in a field.  While scanning that goose gathering, I saw many lovely, red blooms on a red maple tree, with the feeding geese behind them in the lush rye field.  What a beautiful sight the rye, geese and maple flowers were; so typical of early spring in this area!       As I continued to drive, I saw other groups of handsome Canada geese basking in warm sunlight, and more pretty red maple blossoms.  And what inspiring sights they were!        I also saw a couple each of little groups of handsome American robins and shining purple grackles looking for invertebrates on short-grass lawns.  They grace lawns every March into summer.        Rolling along, I noticed patches of light-blue in some lawns and along several roadsides.  And I saw several