FIELDS OF ABUNDANCE

     Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has a lot of cropland.  The major crops here are hay, corn, soybeans and rye, all of which provide food and cover for several species of adaptable wildlife.  Those crops are a wedding between people and wildlife, particularly for white-tailed deer that graze in all of them.

     Originally from Europe, red clover or alfalfa, or both species in the same fields, compose local hay fields.  Several kinds of wildlife ingest parts of hay plants before that vegetation is cut and baled for livestock food in winter.  Wood chucks, cottontail rabbits and deer nibble the foliage and flowers of the lush hay plants.  A variety of bees, butterflies and other kinds of interesting insects sip sugary nectar from the lovely flowers, pollinating those blooms in the process, and making hay fields alive with many buzzing, or fluttering, insects.  Yellow clearwing butterfly caterpillars ingest the leaves of clover and alfalfa, a reason why yellow clearwing butterflies can be abundant among those plants' blossoms.  

     Corn fields are a study in plant succession in one growing season.  Corn is planted on bare ground.  Horned larks and killdeer plovers are pre-adapted to hatching young on bare soil, or nearly so, and those species raise young in newly-sprouting corn fields.  

     When corn stalks grow to be ten feet tall by mid-summer, it seems that little flocks of local, post-breeding barn swallows and American robins spend some summer nights perched on sheltering corn leaves.  It's interesting to see those birds zipping in among the corn stalks as darkness closes in.  

     Over the years, I've also noticed that a few male indigo buntings, in their deep-blue plumages, perch on the edges of corn fields in late July and sing as if they are claiming territory, as they do in hedgerows and woodland edges.  Those indigos consume weed seeds, and a variety of insects they find among the corn stalks.

     The edges of corn fields are home to a variety of tall weeds and grasses, including red root, lamb's quarters and foxtail grass.  A small variety of grasshoppers eat the foliage of those plants and the corn stalks, and house sparrows and field mice feed on the seeds of the weeds and grasses.

     After corn is harvested to the ground for livestock feed, many kernels of corn lie on the ground.  Permanent resident,crows, mourning doves, pigeons, mallard ducks and Canada geese, and wintering snow geese and tundra swans, ingest those kernels in some fields through winter.  Flocks of those birds descending onto harvested corn fields in winter to feed on corn kernels are exciting to experience.  Each group swirls over the fields a few times to check for potential danger, then down they come, into the wind for flight control.  

     Deer and the caterpillars of silver-spotted skippers eat the leaves of soybeans through summer.  Tall weeds and grasses grow in many fields of soybeans, where grasshoppers feed on their leaves.  In fall, the leaves of soybeans turn yellow and the foliage of the weeds and grasses turn red and yellow, respectively, adding beauty to the fields.  Wintering horned larks and a few kinds of sparrows ingest weed seeds lying on the ground.  And the same adaptable birds that eat corn kernels in winter, also consume soybean beans off the ground.   

     Winter rye is a grass that has multiple uses to farmers in Lancaster County.  Planted by early October, often among rows of beige corn stubble, fields of lush, green rye plants resemble lawns.  Rye fields have their own green beauty until snow covers them.

     Rye adds nitrogen to the soil, and covers and protects it from erosion through winter.  In spring, livestock might graze on its green shoots, or it might be plowed under as green fertilizer to help enrich the soil.  Or it might be grazed, and later plowed under.  Or it might be grazed, and then allowed to grow tall to be harvested early in July for its grain, and straw, which becomes bedding for farm animals in barns.  Straw is later spread on the fields with livestock manure, which enriches the soil. 

     Meanwhile, deer, and flocks of noisy Canada geese, snow geese and tundra swans pluck the green shoots of winter rye, like sheep grazing on grass.  Hordes of those large birds are exciting to see landing on extensive rye fields, feeding on them, and lifting off those fields, enmasse, in a roar of voices and flapping wings.  Those great flocks lifting off block the views of background fields and woods.    

     These fields in Lancaster County cropland are common, and have an impact on adaptable wildlife, particularly for food.  Fields are human-made habitats that some wild creatures make a living on, at one time of year or another.  Adaptable plants and animals are impressive.  They can readily make do in changing conditions, which allows them to survive.  

     Soybeans are harvested late in fall.  In summer, deer and the caterpillars of silver-spotted skipper butterflies feed on soybean leaves.  Some fields of soybeans have tall weeds and grasses growing among soybean plants.  Wintering horned larks and a fewdes  

             

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