AUTUMN'S RURAL ROADSIDE BEAUTIES

      I know of no human-made habitat more simple, and so closely visible, than vegetated roadside shoulders in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland during September into October.  Many miles long, but only a few feet deep between blacktop and fields, many of those rural roadsides are mowed at least once each summer.  Communities of adaptable, wild plants and animals thrive along roadside shoulders, whether they were mowed or not.  But unmowed roadsides are better habitats for wildlife, because of a greater abundance of food and shelter.

     Foxtail, purple-top, wire-grass, and other kinds of grasses dominate many country roadsides.  Foxtail grass seed heads do appear bushy, like a fox's tail.  The seed heads of purple top grass has an attractive, purply or reddish glow, especially when the sun shines on them.

     Differential and red-legged grasshoppers, and field crickets live along many rural roads and eat the grasses and other plants growing along the roadsides.  I see hordes of both grasshoppers leaping aside as I go by some stretches of roadsides, but few of them in other lengths.  And I often hear the cheerful strumming of passionate, male crickets.           

     In autumn, these grasses are loaded with seeds that mice and seed-eating birds ingest through fall and winter.  And in autumn and winter, a few kinds of majestic hawks, including American kestrels, red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks and merlins perch on roadside poles in croplands to watch for mice and birds  they will attack and consume.       

     Several kinds of plants with beautiful flowers continue to bloom into fall, including Queen-Anne's-lace that have white flowers, chicory with their sky-blue blooms, wood sorrel and butter-and-eggs with their yellow blossoms, red clowers and bouncing bets that sport pink flowers, white clover and white asters.  All these flowering plants are left over from summer, except the smartweeds.  And all of them add beauty to country roadsides through much of fall.  

     The blossoms of red clover, white clover, yellow wood sorrel and white asters regularly supply the last loads of nectar to worker honey and bumble bees, cabbage white butterflies, yellow clearwing butterflies, skipper butterflies pearl crescent butterflies and other kinds of butterflies, a variety of little brown moths, and other kinds of insects, all of which add more beauty and activity to vegetated, rural roadside shoulders through autumn.    

     In September and October, many wooly bear caterpillars, the young of Isabella moths, undulate briskly across country roads in search of food and places to overwinter in safety.  Their black and red-bristled bodies are a joy to see during warm, autumn afternoons.   

     Vegetated roadsides in Lancaster County cropland are human-made, sometimes mowed, habitats that are remarkedly filled with adaptable, beautiful plants and critters.  But these roadside habitats harbor the most life when they are not mowed.  When walking, or riding, on country roads, watch for the wonderful plants and animals that inhabit their shoulders in abundance.