LIFE ON A GOLF COURSE

     We stayed a few days in a motel bordering a golf course in the peaceful country of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley near staunton, Virginia.  Of course the golf course landscape was carpeted by regularly mowed grass, studded with rows of planted white pine trees, and sported a quarter-acre pond, partly flanked with thickets of young trees, shrubbery, vines and weeds, all of which I could see from our second story motel room.  The thickets partly-shrouding the pond were the only real wildlife habitat on the golf course, but I wanted to experience what adaptable creatures could live on a golf course. 

     When I could, I sat by the window of our motel room with a 16 power pair of binoculars and watched for wildlife on the neighboring golf course, which was no wildlife sanctuary.  But I was curious to know what wildlife could live on that mostly manicured, human-made habitat, and other golf courses like it.  

     About twelve stately Canada geese in a group were the first wildlife I saw on the golf course from our window.  They grazed on the grass, a little like sheep would, moving along slowly as they fed.  When full, the geese walked to the pond and rested peacefully, while preening their feathers, bathing and socializing.

     Occasionally, a few each of American crows and American robins moved over the grass in their quest for invertebrates to ingest.  Those adaptable species helped add life to what seemed to be a dull habitat. 

     Just before sunset, one evening, I saw a few each cottontail rabbits and elegant white-tailed deer slip from the dense thickets around the pond and onto the grassy lawn.  There both species nibbled grass, but stayed close to the sheltering thickets to avoid possible danger.  I thought wood chucks, striped skunks and red foxes should dwell among those thickets as well.   But I didn't see any.

     I scanned the thickets with my binoculars to see small birds sheltering in them.  I did see a couple each of brown thrashers and northern mockingbirds fluttering about in the thickets.  And, although I didn't see any, I'm sure gray catbirds and northern cardinals could well have been living in those same thickets surrounding the pond.

     I also saw a few mourning doves and house finches in the thickets, among the pines and around the motel.  The adaptable doves and finches probably were nesting in the pines and feeding on weed seeds around the pond.       

     Although I didn't see any in the short time I was there, other possible critters at the pond could have been dragonflies, green and/or bull frogs, raccoons that would prey on the frogs and muskrats that would eat aquatic vegetation and live in shelters of piled-up plants they make in shallow water.  All those creatures would help add more interesting life to the pond, and the golf course.

     One of innumerable golf courses in the United States, this was not a wildlife oasis.  But it is home to a variety of adaptable species that increase their living space and populations, and we get to enjoy their presence where we might not think they would exist at all.      

     

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