I remember the first time I saw a courting male American woodcock silhouetted against a striking sunset one evening early in April several years ago.

American hazelnuts and speckled alders are wild shrubs native to northeastern North America. Both species have beautiful, intriguing parts early in spring that make them interesting.

American hazelnuts and speckled alders are wild shrubs native to northeastern North America. Both species have beautiful, intriguing parts early in spring that make them interesting.

Every late autumn, winter, and early spring, I look forward to seeing a variety of migrating and/or wintering ducks, geese, and swans in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Beavers and porcupines have much in common. These interesting species are large rodents that live in Pennsylvania’s forests, as well as in woods across much of North America.

Every November, over the years, I have enjoyed the courting of white-tailed deer and great horned owls among the woods, fields, and thickets of southeastern Pennsylvania.

Chestnut oak and black birch trees together dominate dry, rocky slopes and ridge tops in southeastern Pennsylvania, as well as from southern Maine and Ontario to Ohio and Delaware, and along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama.

Sitting on our lawn one evening this summer, I thought about the adaptable wildlife that recently raised young or lived in sheltered places on the outside of our house in a suburban area. These common creatures provided much entertainment and intrigue to us, right at home.

A few kinds of summering birds that I have watched getting food in southeastern Pennsylvania benefit from lawn mowing in suburban areas and hay cutting in croplands.

A few kinds of summering birds that I have watched getting food in southeastern Pennsylvania benefit from lawn mowing in suburban areas and hay cutting in croplands.

Sunny summer evenings in southeastern Pennsylvania are enchanting and become more so as summer progresses.

Southeastern Pennsylvania meadows, dotted with deciduous trees both young and mature, are beautiful farmland habitats.

Southeastern Pennsylvania meadows, dotted with deciduous trees both young and mature, are beautiful farmland habitats.

May is a time of flowers, singing birds, long evenings, and other beauties of spring in southeastern Pennsylvania. And it’s the time of tender, new growth on coniferous trees, birds nesting in many conifers, and other attractive, interesting aspects of those local evergreen trees.

May is a time of flowers, singing birds, long evenings, and other beauties of spring in southeastern Pennsylvania. And it’s the time of tender, new growth on coniferous trees, birds nesting in many conifers, and other attractive, interesting aspects of those local evergreen trees.

American kestrels, red-tailed hawks, belted kingfishers, and great blue herons are common, easily spotted predatory birds here in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.

American kestrels, red-tailed hawks, belted kingfishers, and great blue herons are common, easily spotted predatory birds here in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.

Several kinds of adaptable, wintering birds — including horned larks, Canada geese, mallard ducks, rock pigeons, mourning doves, American crows, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, and screech owls — feed in fields harvested to the ground in southeastern Pennsylvania, but they rest and digest their food elsewhere.

Risking death, several kinds of common wildlife in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, are adaptable enough to get food off country roads through the year. Some of the more common foods on rural roads include earthworms, dead animals, spilled grain, and road apples.

Wintering flocks of horned larks, house sparrows, starlings, rock pigeons, mourning doves, and other species of birds are adapted to eating grass, weed seeds, and bits of corn in extensive fields in southeastern Pennsylvania during winter.