SMALL BIRDS DINING IN WINTER

     During December 18 and 19, 2024, while doing errands close to home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I happened to see four kinds of common, adaptable birds, an American kestrel, a pair of eastern bluebirds, and a small flock each of American robins and dark-eyed juncos, feeding on what they could in winter.  These species are just a few of the many kinds of wild fowl annually wintering and feeding in my home area. 

     The kestrel was perched on a roadside wire with a mouse in its talons.  It flew up as my vehicle went by, circled behind me and immediately landed again on the same wire to finish its mouse meal.  That pretty, little falcon probably caught the corn and seed fed rodent along a vegetated roadside, between the blacktop, country road I was driving on and a harvested corn field in farmland. 

     A quarter mile down that same country road, I saw a lovely pair of eastern bluebirds perched on a wire.  I stopped to watch them and saw each one drop to a mowed hay field to pick and eat some kind of invertebrate, which they do when the weather is mild enough for some invertebrates to still be active in winter.  But when the weather is cold enough to freeze the ground, or snow is on the ground, the bluebirds resort to eating berries.

     As I drove through a town park of tall trees and short grass, I saw a small gathering each of American robins and dark-eyed juncos on a bare patch of soil, about the size of an average ranch house and covered with straw, telling me that grass seed was recently planted in the bare ground.  The robins were pulling earthworms from the moist, loose soil that was not frozen, while the juncos were ingesting the grass seed itself.  

     The robins will continue to consume invertebrates, as long as the soil is not frozen, or covered by snow.  But when invertebrates are unavailable, the robins will eat berries.

     I noticed a row of young arborvitae trees planted near that spot of bare ground.  Those trees offer great shelter to the juncos every night through winter.

     These are just a few examples of common, adaptable birds dining during winter in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Readers can have fun and inspiration looking for other kinds of wildlife eating their way through the perils of winter.      

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