WINTERING BIRDS ALONG STREAMS

      Four kinds of mostly-brown, small birds, including permanent resident song sparrows and killdeer plovers, and wintering Wilson's snipe and American pipits, winter regularly, but sparingly, along streams and brooks in southeastern Pennsylvania farmland meadows.  But, being beautifully camouflaged on mud flats, gravel bars and shallows on the shores of those small waterways, these adaptable, interesting birds are nearly impossible to see, until they move or fly, and then they are quick to duck out of sight on brown flats and gravel bars, and among tufts of vegetation along shorelines. 

     In winter, all these birds ingest invertebrates from waterway shorelines where the running water doesn't freeze and thaws the flats and bars it laps over.  Each bird species snares invertebrates in its own way.  (Song sparrows also consume weed and grass seeds.)  The sparrows, killdeer and pipits pick up invertebrates from the surfaces of the mud, gravel and inch-deep water.  But killdeer, being longer-legged, catch prey in slightly deeper water than do sparrows and pipits.  Snipe, however, rapidly probe their long beaks up and down, like sewing machine needles, into mud under shallow water to pull out invertebrates.  The sparrows also snare invertebrates from soil up the stream banks.  Getting food from different niches allows these birds to winter together with limited competition for that sustenance.     

     Some song sparrows winter in whatever shrubby, or tall grass and weed, patches that grow along these small, farmland waterways.  These birds are brown with decorative, dark streaking all over.  And they flit about, pumping their tails as they fly, along waterway shorelines in their searches for food.    

     Inland shorebirds, the handsome killdeer are about robin-sized, brown on top, but white below, with two black bands across their chests.  Killdeer live and nest on streamside gravel bars, short-grass pastures and bare-ground fields that, to them, is similar to the beaches where they evolved.  They feed on invertebrates in all those habitats.  

     The sparrow-sized pipits raise young on the Arctic tundra, but come south to spend the winter.  Flocks of pipits roam over bare fields to pick up invertebrates and tiny seeds, while other, individual, pipits winter along small waterways where they ingest invertebrates.

     Robin-sized, but chunkier, Wilson's snipe are inland shorebirds.  Many of them winter exclusively along brooks and streams in farmland meadows where they can be seen with searching with binoculars.  Snipe are brown with beautiful chocolate and black streaking that camouflages them very well.  

     Many killdeer and pipits roam over bare fields to get food.  But when snow covers those fields, and their foods, the killdeer and pipits go to running waterways in pastures to eat invertebrates that are made available by that running water.  Then we see all four kinds of these small birds at once.

     Adaptable, interesting and attractive little birds, song sparrows, killdeer plovers, Wilson's snipe and American pipits can be spotted wintering along pasture waterways in southeastern Pennsylvania, as well as across much of the United States.  But they are well camouflaged and difficult to spot until they move about or fly.