Fast-food restaurant parking lot is a buffet for variety of birds [I Know a Story column]

One afternoon in May, five years ago, my wife, Sue, and I had lunch at a local fast-food restaurant. Because of the pandemic, we dined in our pickup on the restaurant’s parking lot.

While enjoying lunch, we saw a few each of purple grackles, starlings and house sparrows pecking at half a roll on the blacktop near our truck. Those birds were entertaining.

Soon I was surprised to see a northern mockingbird helping itself to the same roll. But then I remembered seeing other mockingbirds on parking lots. As I thought about the mockers, I noticed a pair of gray catbirds scavenging crumbs on another part of the parking lot.

That was five kinds of adaptable birds, at once, getting food on a parking lot! Grackles and starlings regularly travel small distances to get food. House sparrows generally live around buildings and are noted for getting bits of food from parking lots.

But why were the mocker and catbirds there? I had the answer when the catbirds flew into a clump of ornamental shrubbery in the restaurant’s landscaping. Some mockingbirds live in the same habitat. Both those related species might even raise young among that planted shrubbery.

I also remembered seeing a chipping sparrow on the ground under planted bushes outside another fast-food restaurant. I recalled seeing chipping sparrows scavenging crumbs on the floor of a park pavilion. Some chipping sparrows probably consume crumbs off restaurant parking lots, as well.

As we were driving out of the restaurant parking lot, we saw a couple American robins looking for invertebrates on the restaurant’s small, short-grass lawn. We saw a row of bushes and young trees bordering that lawn, a hedgerow where permanent-resident and adaptable song sparrows and northern cardinals surely live and raise young.

Rock pigeons and mourning doves are other adaptable birds getting food on parking lots. American crows, fish crows and ring-billed gulls scavenge on parking lots in winter.

Being adaptable is a key to success. Wildlife adapted to human-made niches and activities have a chance of prolonged success.

Readers, watch for birds, insects and other kinds of wildlife in parking lots and other human-made habitats wherever you may be. Those creatures are quite entertaining, even where you may not expect them to be.

The author lives in New Holland.

If you know an interesting, true story, please write it in 600 words or less and send it to Mary Ellen Wright, LNP editorial department, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328, or email it to [email protected]. (No fiction or poetry, please). Please include your phone number and the name of the town you live in.