natureswondersbyclyde

     Several kinds of flowering plants bloom beautifully through October in many of southeastern Pennsylvania's moist, grassy meadows no longer grazed by livestock.  Those pretty blossoms enhance the pastures, and provide food and cover for certain kinds of wildlife.  Asters with tiny, white flowers, asters sporting small, pale-lavender blooms, tall goldenrod plants that have tiny, yellow blossoms, red clovers with pink flowers and tall, spindly chicories that have sky-blue ones, in that order of abundance, dominate those meadows with their lovely colors during October.       The innumerable white blossoms of white asters dominate some pastures to the point that, from a distance, they look like snow fell only on those meadows.  Conditions must be just right in those meadows for white asters to be so overwhelmingly abundant.      Asters with pale-lavender blossoms dominate certain other pastures.  I think those asters ...

     Though different species, black Jack, scrub and scrub chestnut oaks have several valuable characteristics in common.  These oaks are adapted to living in dry, rocky, barren soil where they forfeit richer soil to receive ample sunlight in habitats where few other trees shade the ground..  They also are early successional trees that colonize repeatedly burned-over or timbered-off, woodland habitats.  They help hold down and stabilize soil against wind and water erosion where few other plants are present to do that essential job.  They produce attractive acorns in those nearly sterile habitats where food for wildlife can be limited.  And they are small trees with contorted, picturesque forms and boughs that make them interesting to experience for themselves.  Their "skeletal" forms are best seen in winter when their foliage is on the ground.      The rustic acorns of these scrubby oak species are brown when ripe, and each one...

      Brown pelicans and American white pelicans live and nest in North America.  And although they are large and appear bulky on land and water, both species are elegant and graceful when in flight.  Their flight is beautiful, entertaining and inspiring, particularly when highlighted before a landscape or silhouetted against the sky.  Airborne pelicans seem to be works of art!      Being related, the relaxed, spell-binding flights of both kinds of pelicans are similar.  They fly in rows, lines or V's, with each bird evenly spaced among its fellows.  Pelicans in rows resemble chorus lines that often undulate from one side to the other as the birds alternately flap and soar together as if one.  They seem to rehearse their flight patterns.        Pelicans flying in lines follow each other with slow, measured flaps, as they sweep along rapidly, as if the birds are cars of a train on aerial train tracks....

     I have been watching water-loving birds on Lake Onalaska, a backwater lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, via their live camera and our computer screen.  Most of the birds there are in flocks, making Onalaska loaded with feathered life during September into November.  Some species have been there all summer, while other kinds pour in from their breeding grounds elsewhere.        Non-breeding American white pelicans and double-crested cormorants were there all summer.  Both handsome species catch fish, but in different ways.  Pelicans form groups on the water to work together to herd small fish into shallows.  Then the pelicans dip their ample beaks and pouches into the shallows at once to scoop the fish into their pouches, straining water from their bills and swallowing their prey.      Cormorants dive under water from the surface and catch one fish at a time in their beaks.  They rise to ...

     Late in August of 2023, I was surprised to see a few each of eastern kingbirds and cedar waxwings eating drupes from a choke cherry tree in our suburban lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Both species may have nested here, but I didn't notice them until late August.  I wondered if they raised young here because they are, basically, farmland birds in Pennsylvania.         Eastern kingbirds and cedar waxwings, though unrelated, have characteristics in common.  Both are about the same size and shape.  They nest on twigs in deciduous trees in farmland in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Both kinds of birds have a band of light color at the end of their darker tails, which may help those birds keep track of members of their respective species.  And they quickly sweep into mid-air, from twig, wire or fence perches, to catch and ingest flying insects on the wing.  Both these bird species are entertaining to watch repea...

     One afternoon this September, I saw a group of  American coots and three pied-billed grebes floating together on shallow water by a grass-covered, alluvial island in Lake Onalaska, a large back-water off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  I saw those water birds via a live camera at the lake and our home computer screen.      Though unrelated, these handsome, interesting birds have characteristics in common because the habitat they share shaped them to fit into it, for their survival.  They long ago adapted to it to live, get food and reproduce in it.        Coots and grebes are built like ducks to easily float on water surfaces.  Both kinds have lobed toes that allow them to push gracefully, powerfully and efficiently through water.  But both species must run over water to get air-borne.        Coots have slate-gray feathering and white beaks.  And they look like half-br...

     American lotus, wild rice, arrowheads and purple loosestrife are decorative, interesting, aquatic plants that grow among tall grass along the shores of alluvial islands in Lake Onalaska, a large, backwater lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  And all that vegetation is most intriguing late in summer when they are in flower and go to seed.      Each of these attractive plants forms clumps of themselves along the edges of Onalaska's islands.  And each vegetative species provides food and shelter for a variety of aquatic creatures.        American lotus are native, emergent plants that are rooted to the muddy bottoms of shallow water in ponds and lakes, here and there, across the eastern United States.  They have large, bowl-shaped leaves and fragrant, creamy-yellow flowers up to ten inches across during August and September.  Leaves and blooms poke only a few inches above the normal water level. ...