natureswondersbyclyde

      At dusk through winter, flock after flock of majestic tundra swans, Canada geese and northern pintail ducks lift off the shallow water of retention basins and fly into the wind in silhouetted, black lines and V's before cloudy skies or brilliant sunsets.  Those magnificent skeins of waterfowl are heading to harvested cornfields to shovel up corn kernels on the ground, or winter grain fields to pluck and ingest green shoots.  Or at dusk, those waterfowl species return to the shallow basins after stuffing themselves with corn and green shoots.  Either way, their flocks passing swiftly, and noisily, across orange or red, water color sunsets and turning into the wind to parachute down to the ground, or water, are majestically beautiful and exciting to see, and hear constantly calling to each other.  And the still water of those basins reflects the lovely sunsets and the birds whose silhouetted reflections race across the water's surface to meet each bird when it skis on its w

     Several kinds of apple snails live in fresh-water marshes, ponds and larger, sluggish waterways in tropical regions, from Florida to the West Indies, southern Mexico and much of South America.  Apple snails are the largest of their kind on Earth and, therefore, are good meals for limpkins, heron-like, wading birds with long legs, neck and beak, and snail kites, a type of crow-sized hawk.  Both these bird species prey almost exclusively on apple snails.  And both kinds of birds have bills especially adapted to extract the snails from their shells.            Apple snails consume a variety of aquatic vegetation.  Each individual is either male or female.  And these snails are amphibious in that they are adapted to surviving in alternating water and drought by having a gill and a lung.  And each snail has an operculum that seals its shell tight to retain body fluids during drought.  Female apple snails spawn clusters of pink eggs an inch or two above the normal water line so fish can

     I am always amazed how adaptable life on Earth is.  And adaptable birds wintering on and around Barnegat Bay, a large backwater off the Atlantic Ocean in coastal New Jersey, demonstrate that.      Barnegat Bay is bordered on one side by the Jersey mainland and on the other by Long Beach Island, a barrier island between the ocean and the bay.  A long, thin, remnant saltwater marsh of phragmites and tall grasses along the bay on Long Beach Island helps attract wintering birds to the bay area.  And I see those birds by a live camera mounted on an osprey nest near Bayview Road on Long Beach Island, and our computer screen.       Again, I am amazed how many creatures live in such a tiny habitat as that pitiful saltwater marsh, surrounded by the works of people.  Long Beach Island is almost completely covered by houses and other types of buildings.  Little of the original island is left for wildlife.        On our computer screen, almost daily in winter, I see group after group of Atlan

    Birds and mammals coming to bird feeders in winter are entertaining and enjoyable.  We can appreciate their beauties and interesting everyday routines close-up and right at home because of those feeders.        Some public parks maintain feeders that people can view from a blind, or see on-line because of live cameras and computer screens in the comfort of their homes.      Feeders in woodland, thicket and overgrown field settings at Climber's Run Nature Center in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania can be watched on computer screens the year around.  Each winter day those feeders are almost constantly alive with several kinds of birds from the nearby habitats mentioned above.            Downy, hairy, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers are permanent resident, woodland birds that regularly come to the feeders to ingest suet and sunflower seeds.  These attractive woodpeckers also use their sharp beaks to chip into bark and dead wood to get invertebrates to consume.  And the

     It is amazing how adaptable some forms of life are.  Two kinds of birds, gray gulls and sand grouse, demonstrate that quite well.      We think of gulls nesting along the shores of seacoasts, lakes and rivers, but gray gulls raise young in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, a unique habitat for nesting gulls.  The Atacama is noted as the driest place on Earth.        Gray gulls live and feed along the Pacific Coast of South America, but adapted to nesting in the Atacama where there are few predators to prey on their eggs and chicks.  The South American gray fox is their chief predator.      Gray gulls nest from November through January.  Each female gray gull lays two or three cryptic-colored eggs in a shallow scrape in the sand of that desert.  And when her chicks hatch, she and her mate take turns shading and guarding the chicks while the other parent flies twenty to sixty miles to the Pacific Coast to consume mole crabs and other invertebrates in the beaches and small fish f