natureswondersbyclyde

      During March, each year, I watch our computer screen to see migrant birds on the Platte River in southcentral Nebraska via a live camera at Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary.  And I am excited to see plenty of them, including hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes, thousands of dabbling ducks of at least four kinds, mixed flocks of blackbirds, and several scavenging bald eagles.  Those birds fill the air, the shallow channels of the Platte, and its many mudflats, particularly at dawn and dusk, and overnight all through March and into April.  And all those bird species are strikingly attractive, making them enjoyable to experience, even on a computer screen.           The stately cranes roost on the flats and in the shallows at night, but each morning take off in great, noisy flocks and fly out to feed on waste grain in harvested fields on the Nebraska prairie.  Toward sunset, however, the cranes' great masses are back on the Platte to roost overnight.  Their incoming, swirling f

     Many north-bound shorebirds pass over coastal shorelines on their way to their nesting territories on the Arctic tundra.  And many of them land on beaches and salt marsh mud flats to rest and consume nutritious invertebrates before continuing on.      Some shorebirds, however, migrate inland on their way to northern nesting habitats, including the tundra.  And some of them sweep down onto flooded, bare-ground fields in southeastern Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, after heavy or prolonged rain in April and May.  There they ingest invertebrates emerging from the soil to avoid drowning.  Several each of pectoral sandpipers and two kinds of yellowlegs sandpipers do so in April here, and least, semi-palmated and solitary sandpipers, and semi-palmated plovers do so in May.  These shorebirds bring a feel of coastal shorelines to those bare fields.      To those handsome shorebirds, inundated, bare-ground farmland is like the vast tundra, beaches and mud flats they are already adapted to; na

     Mummichogs are a kind of minnow-like killifish that lives permanently in brackish creeks and channels of salt marshes and sheltered shoals of estuary shorelines a bit inland from the Atlantic coastline from Maine to Florida.  Their common name is a Native American word that means "going in crowds", because of their dense schooling habit.  They reach sexual maturity in their first year and live about three years.            Mummichogs are a bit stout, though still stream-lined to swim in currents, and about six inches long.  Males are olive-green, with vertical silver stripes on their flanks, yellow on their fins and bellies, and blue and orange markings during warmer months, when they spawn.  Females are brownish-green, with dusky, vertical striping, which camouflages those egg-layers.      These are hardy, little fish, able to thrive in rapidly-changing conditions.  They tolerate radical fluctuations in temperatures, salinity, and oxygen in the water.  They even pass ba

     Today, March 28, 2024, the live camera at Lake Onalaska, a back-water lake off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, was, for a time, focused on several yards of tall grass on a small, mud flat island, and shallow water in front of that grassy island.  The migrant bird species in those grass and water niches, including flocks of tree swallows, several scattered red-winged blackbirds, a few lesser yellowlegs sandpipers, and a small group of regal ring-necked ducks, were beautiful and inspiring to see in their natural habitats, even when viewed on a computer screen.  All those species recently moved into those niches to rest and feed, but only the red-wings will stay there to raise young among the tall grasses.      Flocks of American white pelicans, sandhill cranes, tundra swans, Canada geese, common goldeneye ducks and ring-billed gulls, plus several bald eagles, were on Lake Onalaska at that same time, but I was focused on the beauties and intrigues of the four bird species on, and

     While watching for birdlife at Lake Onalaska, a large backwater off the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, on our computer screen on March 21 and 22 of this year, I noticed many each of migrant tree swallows, common goldeneye ducks, bufflehead ducks and ring-necked ducks above and on that lake at the same time.  The swallows were speeding and swerving low to the water to catch flying insects while the three kinds of ducks were diving under water from the surface to ingest small crustaceans, mollucs, aquatic insect larvae and water vegetation.  Each species was obviously refueling to continue its migration to its nesting territories.          Drake goldeneyes were also constantly and vigorously courting females of their kind.  When courting, each drake throws his head back, then snaps it forward with an accompanying kick of his orange legs.      In March, the attractive tree swallows sweep north over the North American continent from coast to coast, feeding on flying insects along the

      On March 19 of this year, I stopped my car to scan a recently plowed field to spot birds on it.  And I did!  Many American robins were scattered across it and a small, mixed group of purple grackles and red-winged blackbirds were on it.  All those handsome birds were there to ingest invertebrates they found in the turned-over soil.        Sometimes in March, I look for flocks of attractive robins and grackles on lawns in southeastern Pennsylvania.  Those birds are exciting, obvious symbols of spring I look forward to seeing every year in this area.  But when I don't see those species on lawns at that time, I look for their gatherings in farmland, specifically in plowed fields and around puddles in short-grass pastures.  Those are human-made habitats where earthworms and other invertebrates are exposed to birds who will eat them.      Plows turn the soil over, exposing invertebrates to flocks of several kinds of pretty birds, including migrant robins, grackles, red-wings and w