natureswondersbyclyde

     Arborvitae trees, also known as northern white cedars, are commonly planted, often in rows to block wind, on many suburban lawns in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.  Young to half-grown arborvitae are evergreen, have attractive, columnar shapes the year around, and provide beauty to humans and shelter to a variety of birds through the year.            Several kinds of birds, including dark-eyed juncos, saw-whet owls, long-eared owls, Cooper's hawks, mourning doves, house finches, house sparrows, American robins and other species, spend part of each winter day in the sheltering embrace of arborvitaes' densely-needled boughs to escape cold wind and predators.  Owls spend days in them, while the other species are in them at night.       Little groups of long-eared owls obviously exit arborvitae, and other coniferous trees, around sunset each winter evening.  These birds are beautifully silhoue...

     Every spring, years ago, I would occasionally see large flocks of migrating purple grackles landing in fields and lawns to feed on grain and invertebrates.  Those massive gatherings were always noisy, and exciting to see.  But I haven't seen great flocks of grackles in recent years; what happened to them?         I recently read an article on-line that stated grackle numbers in the United States have been reduced by 60 percent in recent years.  The article went on to say that flocks of grackles are being poisoned in the  farmlands of the American south in winter because they consume  a lot of grain.       Grackles are handsome birds that are a bit larger than robins.  They have blue, green and purple sheens on black feathers.  And being quite adaptable, grackles walk about on lawns and bare fields to consume grain and invertebrates.  They long ago adapted to those human-made habitats...

      At least four kinds of plants, including blue violets, grape hyacinths, periwinkle and ground ivy, produce lovely, purple flowers in abundance on many sunny lawns in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Those blossoms offer much beauty and interest through much of that month, right at home.  And all these blooming plants spread across lawns.      Blue violets are native woodland wildflowers that have adapted to lawns.  I have seen beautiful purple violet flowers cover some lawns so well that those yards look purple from a short distance for a couple of weeks.  Violet blooms peek out coyly from grass and their own broad leaves that cottontail rabbits and wood chucks like to eat.                Grape hyacinths are originally from Eurasia.  They are in the United States because many people have planted their bulbs in flower gardens to enjoy the plants' pretty, purple blossoms.  But hy...

      During March, each year, I watch our computer screen to see migrant birds on the Platte River in southcentral Nebraska via a live camera at Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary.  And I am excited to see plenty of them, including hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes, thousands of dabbling ducks of at least four kinds, mixed flocks of blackbirds, and several scavenging bald eagles.  Those birds fill the air, the shallow channels of the Platte, and its many mudflats, particularly at dawn and dusk, and overnight all through March and into April.  And all those bird species are strikingly attractive, making them enjoyable to experience, even on a computer screen.           The stately cranes roost on the flats and in the shallows at night, but each morning take off in great, noisy flocks and fly out to feed on waste grain in harvested fields on the Nebraska prairie.  Toward sunset, however, the cranes' great masses are back on th...

     Many north-bound shorebirds pass over coastal shorelines on their way to their nesting territories on the Arctic tundra.  And many of them land on beaches and salt marsh mud flats to rest and consume nutritious invertebrates before continuing on.      Some shorebirds, however, migrate inland on their way to northern nesting habitats, including the tundra.  And some of them sweep down onto flooded, bare-ground fields in southeastern Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, after heavy or prolonged rain in April and May.  There they ingest invertebrates emerging from the soil to avoid drowning.  Several each of pectoral sandpipers and two kinds of yellowlegs sandpipers do so in April here, and least, semi-palmated and solitary sandpipers, and semi-palmated plovers do so in May.  These shorebirds bring a feel of coastal shorelines to those bare fields.      To those handsome shorebirds, inundated, bare-ground farmland is like t...

     Mummichogs are a kind of minnow-like killifish that lives permanently in brackish creeks and channels of salt marshes and sheltered shoals of estuary shorelines a bit inland from the Atlantic coastline from Maine to Florida.  Their common name is a Native American word that means "going in crowds", because of their dense schooling habit.  They reach sexual maturity in their first year and live about three years.            Mummichogs are a bit stout, though still stream-lined to swim in currents, and about six inches long.  Males are olive-green, with vertical silver stripes on their flanks, yellow on their fins and bellies, and blue and orange markings during warmer months, when they spawn.  Females are brownish-green, with dusky, vertical striping, which camouflages those egg-layers.      These are hardy, little fish, able to thrive in rapidly-changing conditions.  They tolerate radical fluc...