WOOD SORREL AND BUTTERFLIES

     In the middle of October, 2024, while waiting in our car while my wife was in the doctor's office, I noticed several yellow cloudless sulphur butterflies flying low over a recently mowed lawn on the border of a suburban area and farmland in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Driving closer to that lawn, I saw those yellow butterflies were sipping nectar from tiny, golden wood sorrel flowers that were so short they were not mowed off.  I noticed, too, there were a few each of cabbage white butterflies, meadow fritillary butterflies and skipper butterflies of at least two kinds also getting nectar from wood sorrel blossoms.  I was impressed how those butterflies all made use of the only blooms left on that short-grass lawn, a human-made habitat. 

     While watching the butterflies for a few minutes, I saw a couple flocks of about twenty wild pigeons each flying strongly and gracefully across the sky, and round and round over nearby fields.  Eventually, those handsome pigeons landed among golden corn stubble in a harvested corn field to ingest corn kernels lying on the ground.  But those restless pigeons were up and down, up and down, as they ate corn in various parts of that field.     

     Wild pigeons, like some other species of adaptable wildlife, depend these days on human-made habitats to survive.  Pigeons feed in harvested grain fields, perch on top of silos for safety and raise young in sheltering barns and under larger bridges.  However, an occasional peregrine falcon in this farmland area catches and consumes pigeons.      

      As I continued to wait for my wife, I saw a couple of individual turkey vultures circling effortlessly across the sky and gone.  I also saw a few crows in ragged formation in the air and a flock of starlings speeding by.  Seeing the pigeons and other birds in local farmland reminded me of how many other species of adaptable, noticeable birds regularly feed in the fields, including mourning doves, Canada geese and mallard ducks, all of which eat grain.  Red-tailed hawks and American kestrels watch for rodents and grasshoppers in those same fields.  All these birds are adapted to, and, at least, partly dependent on fields for their sustenance.         

     These birds, and other kinds, are adapted to, dependent on, and benefit from human-made habitats, including farmland.  They get an ample food supply, and we experience their beauties and intrigues, often close to home.  And these species should have a bright future.  

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