VERNAL BEAUTIES AT MIDDLE CREEK

      This February, 2025, I watched flocks of Canada geese, tundra swans and snow geese on an 800-acre lake at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, owned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in southeastern Pennsylvania, by the commission's live camera and our home computer screen, as I do every spring.  And on February 10 to the 12th I enjoyed polarized weather at Middle Creek, as well.  

     On February tenth, a pretty, sunny late-afternoon added to the beauty of the geese and swans on that lake and in the air over it.  Beige grass fields and gray woods surrounded that lovely lake and its stately birds.  And later that evening, I saw the waterfowl at rest on the lake's water and ice, under several stars and the nearly full moon; an inspiring sight.

     But February 11 and 12 had different weather, with cloudy skies, snow flurries and a bit of fog by late afternoon, making the landscape dreary to many people.  However, there was wild beauty in that gloominess, and the lake, surrounding woodlands and fields and elegant geese and swans were still as attractive as they were the day before in the low-slanting, late-afternoon sunlight.   

     Most waterfowl floated on the water, but some sat on ice beside the water, while other geese and swans were majestic in flight over the lake.  And I heard the unending calling of Canada geese, tundra swans and snow geese through our computer.  

     The air, water and ice were cold those days, but waterfowl have dense, waterproof feathers that keep them warm and dry.  Therefore, they have no problem being comfortable on water and ice in the open with a lack of shelter.         

     Some of the Canada geese are permanent residents at Middle Creek, and they will stay to nest there.  But many other Canadas are migrants, and will leave sometime in March to power north to their nesting territories.  Adult Canada geese are always magnificent in appearance, and adaptable, which allows many of them to raise goslings in human-made habitats, including farm ponds and wet meadows.

     It's interesting to watch Canada geese in flight side-slipping to more quickly descend to water or the ground.  It is one of the neat things they do that keep people interested in watching them.    

     I often see family groups of tundra swans on Middle Creek's lake.  Fully adult swans have totally white feathering, but the young of last year have grayish heads and necks.  

     Canada geese and tundra swans both leave the lake in small groups, twice a day it appears, to feed on waste corn and winter rye shoots in nearby farmland.  When full, back both majestic kinds come to the lake, circle it and parachute down to the water and ice to rest, preen their feathers and socialize among themselves.     

     Snow geese are always the stars of the show at Middle Creek's impoundment, and everywhere else.  Their great, noisy, airborne masses, returning from harvested corn fields and winter rye fields, where they fed, look like waves sliding up a beach. dominate the lake.  Clouds of snow geese circle the lake time after time, as if watching for danger.  Then those hordes spiral down to the water when individual snow geese drop out of the swirling blizzard of geese like a snowfall, until the whole great cloud of them are on the water, and ice, where they, too, rest, preen, and socialize incessantly, day and night.  Actually the Canadas, swans and snow geese all constantly call out, day and night, unendingly.

     Snow geese, particularly, appear restless.  Sometimes, a whole flock just settled on an impoundment or field, only to take flight, with a shout, right away.  Their masses take flight like a sheet being lifted at one end and the rest of the sheet following in turn.  That way each goose waits its turn and I have never seen a collision among them.  Furthermore, snow goose flocks are so dense with birds that they block out the scenery behind the airborne flocks.

     Middle Creek is alive with elegant and migrating geese and swans during February and March.  But within a few weeks those stately birds will migrate farther north toward their nesting territories, leaving some pairs of Canada geese at Middle Creek, where they will raise goslings.  Middle Creek has its day early each spring.                  

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