natureswondersbyclyde

      Being related from a common ancestor, woodpeckers, worldwide, have unique characteristics in common, including two toes in front of each foot and two in back and stiff tail feathers that prop each bird upright on vertical tree trunks.  They all have sturdy, chisel-like beaks that chip into dead wood of trees to extract and ingest invertebrates.  And they all excavate hollows in trees or large cacti with their bills, in which they raise young.  See the attractive feather patterns of these woodpeckers, and their ranges, in a field guide or on a computer.         But five species of woodpeckers in North America, including northern flickers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, acorn woodpeckers, white-headed woodpeckers and Lewis' woodpeckers have mostly diverged their menus from invertebrates in dead wood of trees to other kinds of foods.  By consuming other foods, these woodpeckers reduce competition for sustenance with their relati...

      Brown thrashers are "eastern roadrunners".  These thrashers mostly feed on invertebrates, seeds and berries on the ground, and usually run rapidly from danger, rather than fly.  But one summer afternoon, I was watching a handsome brown thrasher flipping leaves and scratching about for seeds and invertebrates in the soil of a lawn just outside a woodland.  He had warm-brown feathering on top, as all brown thrashers do, which camouflages them on the ground.        Suddenly a red-shouldered hawk swooped down toward that thrasher with the intent to kill it for a meal.  I thought the thrasher was doomed.  But the intended victim flew up toward, but under, the hawk and winged low across the lawn to the woods where it disappeared.  The hawk overshot the thrasher and by the time that predator swung around, its intended prey was long gone.  I thought, "clever thrasher".      At other times, over the y...

      During late summer, through autumn and into winter, I see lots of attractive grasses along roadsides, and in pumpkin and soybean fields, abandoned fields and excavation sites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland.  Most of those grasses are green foxtails, yellow foxtails, timothy, goose grass and purple tops, the last kind being the prettiest in fall in my mind.        All these abundant grasses have characteristics in common.  They are all adapted to disturbed soil and full sunlight.  All are originally from Europe, except native purple tops.  They can be up to four feet tall, have long, slender leaves and decorative seed heads, loaded with small seeds, on top of thin stalks.  These grasses help hold down soil in cropland, and provide food and shelter for a variety of wildlife, from grasshoppers to cottontail rabbits and white-tailed deer that ingest their foliage, and mice and small, seed-eating birds that co...

      My favorite Lancaster County, Pennsylvania habitat is thickets of shrubbery, young trees, vines, and tall grasses and flowering plants in hedgerows, and along the edges of rural roads, railways and woodlands during September.  For an hour every week, from late-August to mid-September, this year, I visited a quarter-mile thicket squeezed between a country road and a woodland to watch for nature's progression into autumn, and preparations for winter.  That thicket habitat is always interesting to study because of the ample food and shelter it offers wildlife the year around.  This September, it has a few kinds each of lovely wildflowers, pollinating insects, brightly-hued berries, colored leaves on deciduous trees, and migrating insects and birds.        The dominate trees of this thicket include black gums, red maples, tulip trees, pin oaks and white oaks, all being bottomland trees that do well in constantly moist soil.  ...

      Though unrelated species, Namaqua sandgrouse and gray gulls have characteristics in common.  Both kinds of these birds are noted for nesting in deserts, the sandgrouse in South African deserts and the gulls in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.  Both areas harbor few predators that would eat the eggs or young of these birds.  Even so, the eggs, young and adults of both species are well camouflaged to blend into their sand surroundings for the birds' protection against predators.  Water for the chicks is a problem, however.  But each species has a unique way of providing water to their youngsters in sand nests on the floors of those desert habitats.       Flocks of sandgrouse, males and females, daily commute swiftly several miles, roundtrip, to desert water holes.  They land as one body in inch-deep water where they drink their fill of fresh water; safety in numbers.  A few hawks persist in catching sandgrous...