natureswondersbyclyde

     Late in August of 2023, I was surprised to see a few each of eastern kingbirds and cedar waxwings eating drupes from a choke cherry tree in our suburban lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Both species may have nested here, but I didn't notice them until late August.  I wondered if they raised young here because they are, basically, farmland birds in Pennsylvania.         Eastern kingbirds and cedar waxwings, though unrelated, have characteristics in common.  Both are about the same size and shape.  They nest on twigs in deciduous trees in farmland in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Both kinds of birds have a band of light color at the end of their darker tails, which may help those birds keep track of members of their respective species.  And they quickly sweep into mid-air, from twig, wire or fence perches, to catch and ingest flying insects on the wing.  Both these bird species are entertaining to watch repea...

     One afternoon this September, I saw a group of  American coots and three pied-billed grebes floating together on shallow water by a grass-covered, alluvial island in Lake Onalaska, a large back-water off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  I saw those water birds via a live camera at the lake and our home computer screen.      Though unrelated, these handsome, interesting birds have characteristics in common because the habitat they share shaped them to fit into it, for their survival.  They long ago adapted to it to live, get food and reproduce in it.        Coots and grebes are built like ducks to easily float on water surfaces.  Both kinds have lobed toes that allow them to push gracefully, powerfully and efficiently through water.  But both species must run over water to get air-borne.        Coots have slate-gray feathering and white beaks.  And they look like half-br...

     American lotus, wild rice, arrowheads and purple loosestrife are decorative, interesting, aquatic plants that grow among tall grass along the shores of alluvial islands in Lake Onalaska, a large, backwater lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  And all that vegetation is most intriguing late in summer when they are in flower and go to seed.      Each of these attractive plants forms clumps of themselves along the edges of Onalaska's islands.  And each vegetative species provides food and shelter for a variety of aquatic creatures.        American lotus are native, emergent plants that are rooted to the muddy bottoms of shallow water in ponds and lakes, here and there, across the eastern United States.  They have large, bowl-shaped leaves and fragrant, creamy-yellow flowers up to ten inches across during August and September.  Leaves and blooms poke only a few inches above the normal water level. ...

     Gopher tortoises are called keystone wildlife because they dig several burrows in their forty acre range that other critters also use when the tortoises abandon them, and when each tortoise is in one of them.  With front claws well-adapted for digging, the tortoises dig their tunnels into sand and loose soil up to fifteen feet long and six feet deep.  These reptiles live in their underground homes to avoid extreme heat and cold, fire and predators.  State laws protect the tortoises, and their burrows.         Tortoise burrows shelter scores of other species of creatures small enough to squeeze into them.  Those critters include gopher frogs, indigo snakes, burrowing owls, striped skunks and many species of invertebrates, all of which live in gopher tortoises' range in much of the southeastern United States.      Gopher tortoises are brown all over, which camouflages them.  The adults' top shells are hum...

     Choke cherries are common, native trees in much of the northeastern United Sates, including southeastern Pennsylvania farmland.  Many of the them grow along woodland edges, roadsides and hedgerows between fields, and in some suburban areas, including one twenty-foot tree in our back lawn in southeastern Pennsylvania.        Choke cherry trees grow to be bushy, or small trees up to twenty-five feet tall.  They sprout from seeds in bird droppings, and underground runners, and sometimes make thickets of themselves.      Choke cherry fruits are important to wildlife.  Several kinds of birds and mammals, including some of those in our home neighborhood, ingest the ripening red, or ripe, dark-purple, thin-skinned drupes of choke cherries from late July into early September.  The list of common, summering, mostly post-breeding, birds feeding on the pea-sized choke cherry fruits is long, including flocks of American...

     Certain meadows, plus red clover and alfalfa hay fields, and rural roadsides in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland appear patriotic to me because of their pink red clover and common milkweed flowers, white Queen-Anne's-lace and daisy fleabane blossoms, and blue chicory and alfalfa blooms, mixed in with a few kinds of tall grasses.  These human-made habitats are either grazed or mowed, but the stunted plants grow back and produce new flowers through summer.  And those lovely blooms attract many insects who sip their sugary nectar, pollinating them in the process.      Attractive red clover and milkweed blossoms draw many nectar-seeking bumble bees, carpenter bees and a variety of butterflies to sip their nectar.  And female monarch butterflies spawn eggs on milkweeds, which is their caterpillar's only larval food.       Queen-Anne's-lace is the ancestor of carrots.  Carrots produce flowers that resemble those...