natureswondersbyclyde

     Grape hyacinth and common blue violets together beautifully paint some lawns in southeastern Pennsylvania purple during much of April each year.  Both these species of lovely, flowering plants, nestling in short grass on those human-made habitats, add much beauty to them, free.      Though blossoming together on many lawns, grape hyacinths and blue violets have little in common.  These hyacinths are originally from Europe, while violets are native to North America.  Hyacinths belong to the lily family, while violets are in the violet family.  Hyacinths grow from planted bulbs, but violets are completely wild, popping up where they will.      Prevalent in the northeastern United States, grape hyacinths spread out of the flower beds they were planted in.  Each plant has a few grass-like leaves and a ten-inch flower stalk that extends above the leaves.  That stem supports a tight, tapered cluster of small, ball-like, purple blooms that resemble a bunch of tiny grapes.  Hundreds of th

     The adaptable and abundant carpenter bees and cabbage white butterflies are two of the first insects visible on lawns and fields on warm afternoons in April in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They had overwintered in the protective ground and emerged as adult insects in the first real warmth of spring.  And both these common insects are well-adapted to human-made habitats.         Some years ago, we had an old wooden railing around our front porch.  Some of the wood was rotting and soft, a perfect place for fertile female carpenter bees to raise young.  A half dozen females chewed round holes a few inches deep under the railing for nurseries, until we removed it.           And during April, I've seen scores of female carpenter bees around barns and covered bridges where they look for places of softer wood to chew upward from below to keep out rain.  When each hole is completed, each female carpenter bee puts a small wad of flower nectar and pollen in the back of it, lays an egg on

     Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is near the Chesapeake Bay on Maryland's flat Eastern Shore, halfway down that estuary.  I watched that refuge's wintering birds through its live cameras and our home computer screen from mid-November, 2022 to late February of 2023.      I enjoyed the beauties of the Blackwater River, marshes of yellow-brown phragmites and tall grass and the channels that flow through those marshes, and the green of loblolly pine woods.  Those natural habitats make the refuge appear wild and lovely, even during the dormancy of winter.        Flocks of majestic Canada geese, elegant tundra swans, stream-lined northern pintail ducks and graceful ring-billed gulls, and a few each of great blue herons, bald eagles, northern harriers and red-winged blackbirds dominated Blackwater's above-mentioned, natural habitats, and its human-made impoundments through winter.  The constant, day and night calling of the geese and swans was always a joy to hear.  And I

     Red maple trees have many beautiful, red blossoms during late March and into early April.  Many red maples have been planted on southeastern Pennsylvania lawns for the trees' lovely flowers, shapes, the shade they provide and their strikingly scarlet leaves in autumn.  And during their time of blooming, I see several handsome American robins, purple grackles and starlings feeding on invertebrates on lawns under those pretty trees.            Grackles, robins and starlings are adaptable, common on short-grass lawns and attractive.  And they nest in different niches on those lawns; grackles in coniferous trees for the most part, robins on twigs in shrubs and young, deciduous trees and starlings in crevices in buildings.  One can see there is no competition for nesting places.      Every day in spring, I see grackles walking slowly over lawns as they watch for invertebrates to eat.  These birds are striking in the purple, green and blue sheen of their black feathers, that contras