Yearly Archives: 2010

Happy to see my favorite bird

Peregrines


The snapshot camera at the University of Pittsburgh peregrine nest isn’t broadcasting but it’s capturing motion detection images to confirm the male peregrine’s identity.  (Yes, we’ve confirmed he’s E2.)

The nest is usually vacant but Dorothy stopped by and fanned her feathers earlier this month.   The only excitement occurred last Wednesday when one of the youngsters showed up and begged loudly for food. The same thing happened on Friday at Gulf Tower. 

It must have been the week to stop by the old homestead and ask for a hand-out.  I know the begging youngsters weren’t White or Yellow, the rehab birds, because they haven’t been released yet.

In other news:

  • According to Steve Valasek it’s quiet at the Tarentum Bridge except for an adult peregrine who still shows up at dusk.
  • In Lancaster the nestlings are getting ready to fledge.  Meredith Lombard has new photos in the Peregrines folder at this link.
  • In Columbus Ohio, the resident female peregrine at the Rhodes State Office Building has changed three times since July 1.  Read about it here. 

Other than that, it’s quiet.  Dorothy spends time roosting in the shade near the top of the Cathedral of Learning.  

I’m always happy to see her, even if she isn’t doing anything. 

My favorite bird.

(photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera)

Hairy Willow Herb

Plants & Fungi


Here’s a beautiful flower that used to stump me every year when I found it near the bridge at Jennings Prairie.

This is Hairy Willow Herb (Epilobium hirsutum), a plant in the Evening Primrose family that stands two to six feet tall.  Like all Primroses, the flowers have a distinctive cross-shaped pistil.  This should have tipped me off.

Hairy Willow Herb can be invasive, though it was well behaved when I first found it years ago.  I wonder if it’s gone crazy now in the wetland under the bridge.

If you’d like to find out, join the Wissahickon Nature Club at Jennings Prairie tomorrow at 10:00am for a bird and wildflower outing lead by Esther Allen, Chuck Tague and Dianne Machesney.  For information and directions, click on the “Nature Walks” link here or call Susanne at 412-771-4737.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Double Names

Musings & News


On one of my many Googling trips across the Internet I learned the scientific name of the red-footed booby and it made me laugh.

Sula sula?  All I could think of was the Yale fight song whose second verse begins, Boola, Boola.

Are there many North American birds with double scientific names?   I searched my field guide and found about 20 birds, most of which also live in Europe where scientific naming began.

The names are sometimes fascinating:

  • Nycticorax nycticorax = Night raven, Night raven = Black-crowned night-heron
  • Anhinga anhinga = a Tupi (Brazilian Indian) name meaning Devil Bird = Anhinga
  • Histrionicus histrionicus = this bird is Theatrical, Theatrical = Harlequin duck
  • Tyrannus tyrannus = This Tyrant, Tyrant is very aggressive toward predators = Eastern kingbird
  • And, since first published in July 2010 this species has split!  A prehistoric cave dweller = Troglodytes trodlodytes = the Eurasian wren.  Our winter wren is now a different species without a double name: Troglodytes hiemalis.

And finally, Ajaja ajaja used to be my favorite scientific bird name, a fun word to say if you pronounce the J’s as H’s.  Alas, scientists renamed this bird to Platalea ajaja and took half the fun out of the Roseate spoonbill.

 

(photo of a Red-footed Booby by Deborah Acklin)

p.s. Here are two websites that describe the meanings of scientific bird names: Scientific bird names explained and Bird Names at Ornithology.com.

Pretty, but….

Plants & Fungi


Deep purple and shaped like a shooting star, we’d cultivate this flower in our gardens if the rest of the plant was cooperative.  But it isn’t.

Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) is a woody perennial vine that drapes itself over nearby vegetation.  The plant looks scraggly and the flowers are small.

It’s blooming now in my neighborhood in untended plots and all the places we forgot to weed.  I can’t help but notice it though, because I like the color purple.

And that makes this plant is one of my recurring topics.  See my blog about its poisonous fruit.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Anatomy: Under the head feathers

Bird Anatomy
Turkey vulture and black vulture (photos by Chuck Tague)

23 July 2010

I was going to talk about head feathers today but some of them are named for the body part they cover.  So what are those feathers covering?  I asked two vultures to help me out.

Vultures don’t have head feathers because of their lifestyle. When they eat carrion they stick their heads into rotting carcasses and get their heads very dirty. Since head feathers are hard to clean, vultures just don’t have them.

Pictured here are a turkey vulture at left and a black vulture on the right.  Notice that you can see their ears!  (red arrows)  Birds’ ears are below their eyes on the edge of their cheeks.   On the turkey vulture you can see that the end of his smile comes pretty close to his ear.

These birds also give us a good view of their nostrils, called nares (yellow arrows). The size is quite different between the two species because turkey vultures have a keen sense of smell (big nares) and black vultures don’t. 

And finally, who can avoid noticing those wrinkles?  I’m glad most birds cover them.

(photos by Chuck Tague)

Another Quiz

Quiz


Another mystery bird in a real life setting.  Just like real life this bird is far away and slightly backlit.

How to identify it?  Here are some things to notice:

  • Shape of head
  • Size and color of beak
  • Posture.  Notice how upright this bird is.
  • Color
  • Length of wings relative to the tail.

Any ideas on this one?  Can you tell it’s sex or age?

Let me know.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

p.s. The apparent dent in its chest is not significant for identification but it’s interesting.

A New Nest in Pennsylvania

Peregrines


There’s great news about peregrines coming from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania this week. 

Meredith Lombard reported on PABIRDS that for the first time in 60 years peregrine falcons have nested successfully in Lancaster County.  This raises the number of nests in Pennsylvania to 22, the highest number we’ve had since the days before DDT.

Like me in Pittsburgh, Meredith monitors the peregrine falcons in York and Lancaster Counties.  After months of checking potential nest sites and many disappointments she thought the season would end — again — without any nestlings.  Then she noticed the pair at the Route 462 bridge mating in mid-May. 

Pictured here is the male of this pair.  He hatched in 2004 at Southmarsh Island WMA in Maryland and was hacked from Harper’s Ferry National Park by Craig Koppie.  The female hatched on a building in Virginia and was hacked from a cliff.  They’ve now claimed the arched bridge that crosses the wide and shallow Susquehanna River between Columbia and Wrightsville. 

Apparently their April nest failed but the May nest didn’t.  By late June Meredith saw them delivering prey to the bridge and in early July she heard the unmistakable sound of begging peregrine nestlings.  (Remember that sound from the webcams?)

On July 13, Art McMorris and Jeff Musser visited the bridge and banded two chicks — one male (white tape on USFW band) and one female (blue tape).  At that time they were about 24 days old so they’re expected to fledge in early August.  We wish them a safe flight.

Thank you, Meredith, for your dedication to these birds.

See Meredith’s pictures of York, Lancaster and Susquehanna bridge peregrines here. 

(photo by Meredith Lombard)

Summer Beauty: Black Cohosh

Plants & Fungi


Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) is blooming now in Pennsylvania’s woods.  The flower is white, it’s the root that’s “black.”

The plants are three to nine feet tall topped by a spire of branching, fuzzy-looking flowers.  The spire makes up a third of the plant’s height and normally stands straight (this specimen is leaning) so the flowers appear to float high above the vegetation.

I encountered a large stand of Black Cohosh a week ago at Moraine State Park.  Amazingly, I didn’t notice it at first.  I bent over to identify another flower and when I straightened up I saw the cohosh everywhere like a ghostly army of flowers, white against the cool green of the forest.

Black Cohosh flowers look beautiful but they smell bad.  The purpose is to attract flies, gnats and beetles for pollination.

If you ever have a doubt about identifying this plant, take a whiff.  Eeeeew!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Please show me your bands!

Peregrines


Finally some news from Tarentum! 

On Friday evening Steve Valasek visited the Tarentum Bridge and spent 90 minutes observing and photographing this peregrine perched on the upstream side. 

Back in April Steve Gosser saw a pair of peregrines mating at the bridge, the same pair that was identified last winter.  The male hatched at Pitt in 2008 (son of Dorothy and E2), the female in Hopewell, Virginia in 2008.   

On the strength of this great information we assumed there would be a nest on the bridge but Beth Fife from the PA Game Commission looked for a nest in May and could not find one. 

Two months passed.  No one reported peregrines at the bridge.  I checked the bridge twice when I happened to be out that way.  No birds.  Did they nest elsewhere?  Did they nest at all?  Or weren’t we watching enough?

On June 25th Steve Valasek saw a peregrine at the bridge so he returned last Friday to watch and take some pictures.  He was in luck. 

The light wasn’t good but the bird was there and cooperative, at least to the extent that he stayed in one place. Sometimes the peregrine called but no other bird appeared.  Which peregrine was this?  Despite his best efforts, Steve never saw his bands.

Hey, Peregrine!  Please turn around, stretch out that leg you’ve raised and show me your bands!

(photo by Steve Valasek)

Kings and Queens in Marcy’s Garden

Insects


Yesterday I visited Marcy Cunkelman in Indiana County and toured her beautiful garden.   

Her whole yard is planted for nature, especially birds and butterflies.  She uses all natural fertilizer and balances the plants for pest control.  No chemicals in her yard!  They would kill the very insects she is trying to attract.

Did you know butterflies are picky about where they lay their eggs?  They choose the plants their caterpillar larvae like to eat. 

Marcy knows which plants host the various butterflies and cultivates them to attract the species she desires.  Her favorite is the monarch butterfly whose host plant is the milkweed.  Her garden has lots of it and many nectar plants for the butterflies to feed on.

Marcy fosters monarchs and tags them in late summer before they migrate.  Every day she checks the undersides of the milkweed leaves to see if monarchs have laid eggs there.  She knows from experience that female monarchs prefer tender young leaves.  When the plants bloom, the leaves are too tough though the flowers provide a good nectar source.  

What a great place to be a butterfly: food and drink, meet and greet, mate and lay eggs.   

Marcy’s garden is a posh resort for butterflies.  The monarchs are its kings and queens.

(photo of a monarch butterfly on a thistle by Marcy Cunkelman)