Lancaster County croplands seem mostly barren of wildlife in winter, but they aren't because several kinds of birds and mammals are active in local farmland then. But mammals are mostly nocturnal and camouflaged, making them hard to spot.

Field birds, however, are seen at times. I took a leisurely, hour-and-a-half driving tour of fields one afternoon in mid-January to look for cropland birds. The sky was gray and four inches of snow were on fields that were harvested to the ground. Bare, deciduous trees in the fields were majestic before the snow and slate-colored sky.

Two immature northern harriers were the first birds I saw among the snow-covered fields. They flapped slowly back and forth, just feet above a field of alfalfa stubble in search of mice and small birds. They were beautiful, with brown upper parts, orange-brown undersides and white rumps.

Driving on, I saw a pair of red-tailed hawks perched in a lone tree in a field and a female American kestrel sitting on a roadside wire. They were the only raptors, beside the harriers, I saw that afternoon, which was strange because I saw several red-tails two days before in the same area. But then there was no snow on the ground; apparently that made a difference.

I saw flocks of mourning doves and rock pigeons here and there along roadsides where they were ingesting seeds, and tiny stones to grind those seeds in their stomachs. I saw few doves all winter until this first snowfall of the season. Snow on cropland forces field birds to roads to get seeds and grit, making them more visible.

A strip of manure on top of the snow attracted hundreds of sparrow-sized horned larks and scores of mourning doves that were eating bits of corn in the manure. The corn was chewed by livestock, but not digested. The larks were pretty with their brown-feathered bodies and black and yellow-marked faces. I saw few horned larks this winter until the snowfall buried their seed food supply.

I stopped at a thinly running brook in a farmland meadow and scanned it with binoculars. Three water pipits and a Wilson's snipe were on the soil of the stream banks and rocks in the running water. Here these birds blend in to the point of being invisible, until they move.

Sparrow-sized pipits bob their tails as they walk, which is a form of camouflage because it imitates debris bouncing in water. The pipits were scattered over fields to eat invertebrates and tiny seeds until the snow forced them to the running water where they can still get invertebrates.

I stopped by an inches-deep puddle in a short-grass cow pasture to look at it through binoculars. Three Wilson's snipe and two killdeer plovers huddled along the rim of the pool. These robin-sized, inland shorebirds were camouflaged against the mud and short grass. One of the snipe poked its long beak into mud under water to snare invertebrates. Killdeer roam over meadows and fields to get invertebrates until snow falls, forcing them to the edges of shallow water to get food.

And I halted along a hedgerow of trees, shrubs and weeds between fields. There I saw several house finches, a half dozen eastern bluebirds and a male cardinal. These birds were pretty; the male house finches had pink and gray plumages, male bluebirds were blue on top and robin-red below while the male cardinal was red. Finches and cardinals eat weed seeds, while bluebirds consume berries.

Different kinds of wintering birds were at home in their various habitats in Lancaster County farmland. Some of those species were affected by the recent snowfall, making them change their habits. And all of them were interesting to experience on that quiet afternoon.

Clyde McMillan-Gamber is a naturalist for the Lancaster County Department of Parks and Recreation. Email him at gamberc@co.lancaster.pa.us.