[music playing] Hi, I'm Alex.

Welcome back to another episode of A Season at Shaver's Creek.

It was a busy spring for the wildlife around the Environmental Center, and we got to see some rarely seen behaviors and some dramatic scenes of forest disturbance in action.

We're going to see and hear some of those special moments that define springtime in Pennsylvania, as well as some exciting examples of how forests change over time.

Now, I wanted to begin in our meadow ponds.

These are a great place to see and hear some of the hallmarks of spring.

Now we've seen great blue herons catching fish in previous episodes, but that's not why this heron is here.

These ponds have no fish in them, but what they do have is an abundance of amphibians to hunt in the spring.

For many people, the sounds of spring are one of the best indicators that winter is ending, and many species of frog give us some of spring's most iconic sounds as they call out in their courtship displays.

Let's take a listen to just a few.

[spring peepers peeping] Now, spring peepers are small.

The largest measures only about an inch and a half long, but they've got a powerful peeping call that measures up to about 90 decibels, which is about as loud as running most blenders.

A male might peep more than 13,000 times in a single night.

I wanted to introduce this next scene beforehand as it's a pretty quick one.

Broad-winged hawks are a forest-dwelling hawk that love to hunt small reptiles and amphibians.

We see a broad-winged hawk dropping from above on a toad in the hawks view meadow pond, and then taking off from the water with its prize.

A pretty amazing behavior from a pretty rarely observed bird species.

I loved seeing this American crow engaging in a little bit of post-winter self-care.

Starting off with a little bit of hydrating, taking some sips from the creek, then printing its feathers, and then finally hopping in to take a quick bath.

This shallow portion of the creek is a pretty common bathing spot for a lot of birds, as this Northern cardinal follows the lead of the American crow.

This Louisiana waterthrush may not be the most colorful or visually striking bird, but I'm always so excited when I see or hear them in the spring.

You can see it here bopping around the rocks in the shallow water, hunting for a lot of aquatic invertebrates.

And many of the invertebrates that they hunt are particularly sensitive to pollution, so they always nest along streams that are really clean and healthy, enough so to support them.

It's led them to be considered something called an indicator species, which when you see them or hear them at a stream, you know it's probably going to be pretty healthy.

All right.

Now take a listen.

We're going to hear their springtime song that they sing as they set up their territory to attract a mate.

[waterthrush calling] We're going to follow this great blue heron upstream to the next camera location, just past the bridge it flies over.

I love this clip.

Do you see the way the mallards are holding their wings?

Many bird species build relationships with each other not through physical touch, but through behavior mirroring.

You can see them both holding up their wings into the air crossed over one another.

We also got to see a pretty intense forest disturbance event hit right here, too.

Forests are dynamic, ever-changing spaces, and forest disturbances are events that cause changes across portions of a forest.

We had a huge windstorm that ended up uprooting a lot of trees in the valley, and we were lucky enough to see the creation of a brand new bridge spanning Shaver's Creek.

This fallen hemlock is going to serve as a new crossing point for wildlife for months, maybe years to come.

Let's take a look at everything that we've seen use it so far.

[water rushing] It was neat to see these two spotted sandpipers taking a moment to explore the log as they passed through along the stream.

It was really fun to see the moment this one sandpiper notices a flying insect, and then takes flight to catch it.

[music] About a week after the windstorm, we had a tornado warning near the center.

It didn't end up bringing a whole lot of wind to us, but it did bring some marble-sized hail that ended up shredding a lot of foliage of the plants in our wetland.

It was a very dramatic end to our spring season at the center.

I hope you've enjoyed exploring the scenes of spring with me.

If you want to learn a little more about some of the species that we featured in this video, come on out to Shaver's Creek.

You can meet some of our animal ambassadors like Lichen, the gray tree frog, and T, the broad-winged hawk.

Keep an eye on our website for our upcoming programs and events, and check out our new animal encounter programs that we're offering this year.

Thanks again for joining me for another episode of A Season at Shaver's Creek.

And until next time, never stop discovering.

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