Yearly Archives: 2010

The Moons of Jupiter

Musings & News

Jupiter and its Galilean moons (image from Wikimedia Commons)

‘Tis the season to see Jupiter.

Last Wednesday morning (22 Sept 2010) just before dawn the Moon and Jupiter were side by side in the western sky, bright and unmistakeable.

Jupiter vies with Venus to be the second brightest nighttime object.  Last Wednesday I think he won.  I checked him with my binoculars and saw three of his four Galilean moons.

The moons of Jupiter changed our view of the universe.  In 1609 Galileo made improvements to the telescope invented in the Netherlands the year before.  Once he had something that cool to look through he checked the sky.  I can imagine his amazement to see Jupiter so well and to discover four tiny dots around it.  Every night the dots changed position.  What could they be?

Moons!

Jupiter’s moons and papal politics got Galileo in trouble and eventually put him under house arrest.  The moons proved there were celestial objects that did not revolve around the Earth, thus disproving the Catholic Church’s geocentric doctrine that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Galileo wrote several papers publicly supporting Copernicus’ heliocentric view — that the Sun was the center of the universe.  His most famous book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was very convincing and its tone was unflattering to the Pope.  Ooops!  Galileo wasn’t pardoned until 1992.

I imagine what I can see through modern binoculars is roughly what Galileo saw of the moons of Jupiter.  They are indeed fascinating and well worth a book or two.  😉

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(retouched photo of the moons of Jupiter by Don E. Stewart from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original.)

Flying to Mexico

Insects, Migration


Today will be much cooler here in Pittsburgh, but on Thursday it was over 85 degrees and the wind gusted to 17 miles per hour from the west.  That afternoon, to my surprise, I saw two monarch butterflies migrating southwest over Carnegie Mellon’s campus. 

I’m sure the heat helped them.  Maybe the wind helped too. 

The monarchs made amazing progress, flying low below the treetops and aiming almost perpendicular to the wind.  Both of them flew faster than I could walk.

Monarch butterflies migrate south about 50 miles per day, so with the help of this past week’s weather those two butterflies are well on their way to Mexico.

Click here to read about monarchs and the latest news of their fall migration on the Journey North website.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

p.s. On September 18 there was an amazing flight of monarch butterflies along the East Coast.  At Cape May they counted 1,592 in one hour.

Anatomy: Comb

Bird Anatomy

As promised the tall rooster from last week is back again, this time facing the other direction.

Today he has a blue arrow indicating his comb.

Many birds have feathery crests but the heads of gallinaceous birds (turkeys, chickens, etc.) are adorned with a fleshy growth called a comb or cockscomb because the growth is larger on males (cocks) than on females.

The comb on this rooster is quite impressive and helps him stay in charge of the flock.  Power and sex is what wattles and combs are all about.

 

Would you willingly annoy a rooster with comb like that?

“Not I,” said the little red hen.

(photo by Ron Proctor on Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the image to see the original and its attribution.)

Reminder: Things With Wings Sunday, Sept 26

Books & Events

Things With Wings Sunday, September 26, arrives this weekend.  Starting at 2:30pm, WQED will broadcast 4.5 hours of programs about birds and birding.  There will be no re-broadcast so don’t miss it!  Here’s the line-up with links to my reviews of the shows:

 2:30pm, On The Wing: The Swifts of Chapman School  (This review is from our first broadcast of this show in Sept 2009.  Still applies!)

 3:00pm, Journey of the Broad-winged Hawk

 4:00pm, Rare Bird

 5:00pm, A Summer of Birds

 6:00pm, Opposable Chums: Guts & Glory at the World Series of Birding

Chicken-of-the-Woods

Plants & Fungi

23 September 2010

Chicken has been a theme this week, but where’s the bird in this picture?

There isn’t one.  Chicken-of-the-woods is a mushroom.

Otherwise known as Sulphur Shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus) chicken-of-the-woods grows on dead trees.  In many cases it’s edible — but not always.  When it’s edible, people say it tastes like chicken.  When it’s not, those who eat it are probably too sick to describe what it tastes like.

I found a huge patch of Chicken-of-the-Woods growing on the trunk of a fallen sycamore at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve last Sunday.  The patch was so huge it could have covered my desk.  I didn’t remember its name but someone else certainly did and they knew it was good to eat.  Two big chicken-sized chunks had been sliced off the back of it.  Someone had eaten Chicken-of-the-woods for dinner.

No way was I going to be that brave.  I couldn’t identify the mushroom and I knew that even edible mushrooms are sometimes poisonous.  Chuck Tague helped me identify it and sent me this picture.

You can learn more about this mushroom here.  When you click, the author will warn you with a preliminary pop-up that you had better read the whole description before you try this “chicken” for dinner.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Thumbtacked to the Sky? Not!

Birds of Prey


At midday Tuesday I walked to the Cathedral of Learning to find the peregrines, but no one was home.  Instead I saw a tiny speck floating in the deep blue sky above campus.  Was it a balloon? 

Through binoculars I identified an adult red-tailed hawk, motionless as if thumbtacked to the sky.  The heat gave her lift and the wind was just right to hold her aloft without moving her wings.  Sometimes she dropped her legs to create drag, then pulled them up to her motionless position.  Slowly, slowly she drifted out of sight.

I forgot about the hawk and walked the Lawn to check the north face for peregrines.  I had just decided none were there when the red-tailed hawk whooshed over my head.  Barely clearing the treetops, she dropped low over the central lawn, folded up her wings, lowered her talons and nearly — nearly — caught something on the ground at the hedges.  At the last minute the prey escaped.  The hawk pulled up quickly, flew over the heads of three pedestrians and popped over the hillside toward Forbes Avenue. 

Yow!  I was seriously impressed! 

Peregrines fly like fighter jets but red-tails normally maneuver like 747’s.  This was the first time in years that the flight of a red-tailed hawk made my heart go pit-a-pat. 

It’s amazing what a 747 can do in a tight spot. 

(photo of an immature red-tailed hawk on the hunt by Kim Steininger)

Opposable Chums coming this Sunday

Books & Events


Last, but by no means least, on Things With Wings Sunday is a program on the inspiration, exasperation, perspiration and total elation of my favorite pasttime: birding!

First broadcast in May 2009, Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at the World Series of Birding is all about the premier birding competition held every year on one day in May in New Jersey.  The World Series of Birding (WSB) pits teams of birders against each other and the clock to find the most species they can in 24 hours.

It’s a far friendlier contest than it sounds.  Long before the competition begins the teams gather pledges toward their species counts.  As the big day approaches they scout the state for hard-to-find birds and hold a Swap Meet to trade notes on where to find them.  High counts help everyone because the pledges go toward bird conservation.  WSB raises $500,000 or more every year.

So what do birders do at the World Series of Birding?  Opposable Chums follows the teams, as fast-paced as they are.  In and out of cars, up and down the beach, bird jokes and coffee, you get the flavor of the contest and if you’re a birder, you’re challenged by the video clips of birds WITH NO SUBTITLE TO IDENTIFY THEM.  I caught the fever.  I had to identify those birds!  I called out their names as I watched.  I was into it!

At the end of the program I wanted to go birding.

Watch Opposable Chums at 6:00pm on Sunday September 26 on WQED … and tell me… what’s your count?   Show will also air on Sunday, 6 January 2013 at 5:00pm.

(logo from the Opposable Chums website.  Click on the logo to visit the website)

Drought Warning

Weather & Sky


Last Thursday the Department of Environmental Protection issued a drought warning for 24 counties in Pennsylvania and a drought watch in the remaining 43.  The entire state is dry but some places are worse than others. 

Here in western Pennsylvania I could see it coming.

Since July we’ve had no rain for weeks at a time, then a day of mere drizzle or a single downpour that ran off the packed, dry dirt.  The ground is rock hard, the plants have shriveled, and some trees have lost their leaves even though it’s only September.  I was wondering when DEP would declare a drought.

A drought warning is more severe than a watch. Highlighted below are the counties in the warning zone.  As you can see, both the bottom left corner and the east central part of the state are in trouble.

In the warning area DEP asks residents to reduce water use voluntarily by 10-15 percent.  We’re urged not to water our lawns, not to take long showers, to check our faucets for leaks and to upgrade our plumbing.

I’m sure DEP told industry to conserve as well.  

I hope the industries that take water without giving it back(*) will stop drawing water until the drought is over.

(Drought photo from Shutterstock)

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(*)  In western Pennsylvania the Marcellus Shale drilling industry is permitted to draw 48.5 million gallons per day from the Ohio watershed.  The water cannot be given back because most of it is lost underground during hydraulic fracturing and the remainder, which cannot be treated yet to safe drinking water levels, is too dangerous to consume.  For a discussion of Marcellus Shale water issues see this paper by a law firm advising the industry, and this news article about the Monongahela River.

They’re Everywhere

Mammals, Schenley Park


Yesterday afternoon I took a walk in Schenley Park to see what I could find.

There weren’t many birds — just a flock of robins, some grackles and blue jays, one brown creeper, and a single confusing fall warbler — but what was lacking in birds was made up by this very cute mammal.

Chipmunks were everywhere, scrabbling through dead leaves, cramming nuts in their cheeks and shouting as they ran to escape my approach.  My goodness they were busy!

Despite their apparent playfulness chipmunks are actually very territorial.  Except when they’re babies they live alone, one per burrow, and defend that burrow against all chipmunks.  They threaten, they shout, they chase each other everywhere.  And they look so cute while they’re doing it.

By the end of my walk I was sorry I hadn’t counted chipmunks, just for fun.

Was it an illusion or were there more chipmunks than birds?

(photo by Brian Herman)

On the way to somewhere else I found…

Plants & Fungi


…this.

I was Googling for a flower photograph the other day and stumbled on Flora Pittsburghensis, a blog by Christopher Bailey. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this blog — as I was until this week — it’s a great resource on the wild flowers of Pittsburgh.  Bailey photographs native and alien wildflowers in our area, then tags them by family and posts them with extensive descriptions, primarily from Gray’s Manual. 

This morning glory was his subject on September 1st.

Flora Pittsburghensis is a treasure chest of beauty and information.   Click on the photograph to read for yourself… and enjoy!

(photo by Christopher Bailey on Flora Pittsburghensis)