SUMMER BIRDS IN LANDSCAPED PARKING LOTS

      On July 1, this past, I was waiting in my pick-up truck on a blacktop parking lot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for my wife.  While there, I noticed a northern mockingbird on the peak of the roof on a nearby, two-story building, surrounded by the parking lot and little islands of planted grass, shrubbery and trees.  Suddenly, the mockingbird took flight and attacked a crow that was flying by.  The crow landed on the same building's roof, and the mocker, and its mate, continued to viciously dive-bomb it repeatedly until the crow finally flew away.

     The mockers probably were protecting their young in a twig and grass nursery somewhere in a row of planted bushes at the base of the building.  Crows do consume eggs and young from the cradles of small birds, when they can find those foods and if they are not chased away by the parent birds.  

     After that exciting encounter between a crow and a pair of mockers, I thought about other kinds of small birds that I have seen driving house cats, crows and hawks  away from their nests of eggs or young.  Little groups of American robins dive-bomb and vocally harass those predatory creatures just mentioned.  A few male purple grackles chase airborne crows and hawks away from the grackles' nesting territories.  Red-winged blackbird males in marshes are notorious for viciously swooping at crows, herons, ospreys, bald eagles and hawks that they view as being too close to the red-wings' nurseries anchored on phragmites, cattails and tall grass.  Eastern kingbirds, which are a kind of flycatcher nesting on tree limbs in local farmland, dive at larger birds in local fields and meadows.  And barn swallows that raise young in mud pellet cradles on the beams of barns, bridges and other constructions also dive frantically at, and vocally worry, larger, predatory birds, and cats, and even people that get too near their nurseries.      

     I am sure those aggressive actions by parent birds save many youngsters' lives.  Those attacks last only a short time, but there is plenty of exciting drama in them.  

     Another thought I had in that parking lot on July 1 is that I see one or two northern mockingbirds, and several house sparrows, in almost every landscaped parking lot I am in to do errands.  Both those adaptable species are permanent residents in Lancaster County; never migrating.  The planted shrubbery of the landscaped islands attract the mockers that nest in those protective bushes.  And mockingbirds eat invertebrates and berries from the shrubbery and trees.  

     Crevices in the buildings are homes and nurseries to house sparrows that feed on invertebrates, berries and weed and grass seeds they find in the landscaped islands.  Both species also ingest bits of food discarded by careless people. 

     Other kinds of adaptable birds live in those parking lots with little islands of lawn.  Canada geese live and raise goslings around parking lots with grassy islands, if a pond is nearby.  The geese ingest the grass and other vegetation.  Robins rear offspring in grass and mud cradles in trees and search for invertebrates on the grassy islands.  Gray catbirds nest in larger shrubbery of older parking lots and feed on invertebrates and berries they find in those landscaped islands.  These birds have additional homes and we can enjoy their presence.

     When in parking lots with islands of grass, bushes and trees, watch for these birds, and other kinds that might be there.  They are interesting to see in places where we thought wildlife could not live.           


           

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