natureswondersbyclyde

      During July and into August, a variety of shorebirds and swallows are some of the first birds to migrate south to escape the northern winter.  Least sandpipers, semi-palmated sandpipers, greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs and semi-palmated plovers are, generally, the first shorebirds to leave their Arctic tundra nesting areas and arrive in the Lower 48, including Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  And, during that time, local purple martins, barn swallows and tree swallows, all swallow species, are gathering into flocks to drift south.        The first shorebirds arrive in Lancaster County by the middle of July and settle on the mud flats and shallows of human-made impoundments, and certain, low-lying, flooded fields and meadows of local farmland.  There they alternately rest, and feed on invertebrates they pull out of the mud and inch-deep water to build up their weight and strength for the next part of their southward migra...

      The great salmon run in 2025 continued every day through July into August in Brook's River in Katmai National Park in southern Alaska, a region of spruce forests, lakes and rivers.  Through live cameras and our home computer screen, I saw hordes of sockeye salmon by the many thousands shimmy upstream through rocky shallows and leap up a ten-foot waterfall on Brook's River.  One could see how many salmon there were in that river by the fishes' dorsal fins poking above the water.        These salmon recently exited the Pacific Ocean and were struggling upstream through a fast current to their birth places where they will spawn, as did their parents.  The most dramatic parts of their migration are their leaping up waterfalls to continue on.  Several salmon at once briefly become airborne and flop into the waterfall where they attempt to swim up it to the river above.  Although they are streamlined and have powerful musc...

      Mulberry trees originally from China and native choke cherry trees have much in common.  These abundant,  interesting, small trees are big in benefits to several kinds of wildlife in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, providing shelter, and food in the form of decorative, berry-like drupes.        These trees are also scattered across the countryside by wildlife, including robins, waxwings, catbirds, starlings, skunks, deer, bears, opossums, raccoons and other species digesting the pulp of their drupes, but passing the fruits' seeds in excrement across the countryside.  In that way, those creatures insure food for their descendants in the future.        Both these species are adaptable pioneers, being two of the first trees to reclaim land disturbed by mining, agriculture and development.  Both grow rapidly, and some trees produce thickets from shoots on spreading roots.  In southeaster...

      I first became interested in snakes in my early teens living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Most snakes are camouflaged, elusive and stick to sheltering vegetation, making it an exciting event when one is spotted in its natural habitat.  Over the years, northern water snakes and black rat snakes are the species I most commonly see in Lancaster County, mostly because they are abundant here, and fairly large.        Northern water snakes and black rat snakes are non-poisonous and live through much of the United States.  Though harmless to people, they will bite when picked up.  Both kinds have bitten me when I handled them.  The water snakes can be up to five feet long and are a bit chunky.  Black snakes can grow to be over six feet in length.  Both species are active from early April to late October here, but, being cold-blooded, hide away to hibernate through winter.  And both kinds quickly slip a...

      On July 1, this past, I was waiting in my pick-up truck on a blacktop parking lot in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for my wife.  While there, I noticed a northern mockingbird on the peak of the roof on a nearby, two-story building, surrounded by the parking lot and little islands of planted grass, shrubbery and trees.  Suddenly, the mockingbird took flight and attacked a crow that was flying by.  The crow landed on the same building's roof, and the mocker, and its mate, continued to viciously dive-bomb it repeatedly until the crow finally flew away.      The mockers probably were protecting their young in a twig and grass nursery somewhere in a row of planted bushes at the base of the building.  Crows do consume eggs and young from the cradles of small birds, when they can find those foods and if they are not chased away by the parent birds.        After that exciting encounter between a crow and a pair of...

      Barnegat Bay is a 42-mile-long, salty backwater off the Atlantic Ocean between the New Jersey mainland and Long Beach Island, a barrier island of sand and housing.  From mid-May to the end of June, 2025, I had been watching a thin, remnant salt marsh on the island along the eastern shore of the bay, and wildlife in that marsh, through a live camera mounted high on an osprey nest and our computer screen.  And, although there is lots of human activities in the marsh and on the barrier island that disrupts wildlife, that little marsh shows the value of every little natural habitat to a variety of wildlife, no matter how small or where the habitat is.        Early in April of this year, a pair of ospreys settled on the stick cradle on a built and erected nesting platform some twenty feet high on a pole.  The female laid three eggs in that nursery and the pair took turns brooding those eggs.  But during stormy weather, the mal...