Sharon Leadbitter is organizing a peregrine falcon watch Downtown on Sunday, April 1 at noon. Meet her on the top level of the First Avenue T Station parking garage.
She writes: “Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be at the First Avenue garage on the top floor in case anyone would care to join me. Cons – you have to pay to park. Pros – great view of river, jail and most of the other buildings in the siting area, there’s a bathroom on the 3rd floor as well. So come on down and join me. Bring sunscreen, a chair, something to drink and good conversation. I’ll be waiting for you …… (with homemade cookies as well)”
Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) is a rare evergreen plant that usually blooms in April in our area. This year it’s blooming early, just like everything else.
Both of the plant’s first names — trailing and epigaea — refer to its woody, hairy stems that trail on the earth in a dense mat. The leaves are oval and leathery, smooth on top and hairy below.
The plant is unremarkable until it blooms. The flowers are tubular, 5-lobed, pink or white, and usually in clusters at the branch tips. They’re quite fragrant with a spicy smell.
Dorothy and E2 have been incubating their eggs since March 25. Except for moments like this when they trade incubation duty, watching the falconcam can be pretty boring so you might want to keep several nestcams open at the same time to keep the action fresh.
Many of you have sent links to the other webcams you’re watching. Here are just a few of the webcams viewing active nests right now. Some are in different time zones so you’ll get to watch the sun rise and set across the continent.
Peregrines — only a few of the many, many nestcams
This is just the tip of the iceberg! There are more webcams than I can ever list and new ones announced every day as nesting season begins for more species.
Do you have a favorite webcam I didn’t list here? Share it by posting a comment with the link.
Here in the city of Pittsburgh we dodged the frost bullet on Tuesday morning. The temperature fell to 28o but the air was so dry that no frost formed.
Our flowering trees were untouched and by yesterday morning the petals were falling and the seed balls on the London plane trees were on the verge of disintegrating (shown above).
As I walked to work a gust of wind sent the petals and seeds into the air. The petals fell fast and drifted into the gutters but the plane tree (“sycamore”) seeds on their tiny parachutes floated like snowflakes. It was beautiful … and impossible to photograph.
On a warm sunny morning we had sycamore snow.
(photo by Jebulon on Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
Pittsburgh’s downtown peregrines have not courted at the Gulf Tower nest since March 1. Even then they were largely absent in January and February when they should have been visiting the site more often.
What happened?
Peregrines are extremely faithful to successful nest sites but they will leave if they feel the location is no longer safe for raising their young. In a city, humans walking above them, construction on the floors above or near their nest, or faces peering at them from indoors will send them away.
Construction had been going on at the Gulf Tower until quite recently. Perhaps that’s why the peregrines are missing, though we will never know.
We do know Dori and Louie have not left Pittsburgh. One of them flew past the Gulf Tower yesterday and they’ve been seen on the Monongahela River side of town.
For peregrines, biology rules in March. In our area there’s a three week window when they typically begin laying eggs: March 10 to April 2. By April 2 the first clutch has begun.
So where are Dori and Louie now?
Downtown is their territory. They’re here somewhere.
(photo by Shane Cooper. Click on the photo to see the original.)
Here’s a very small bird with a very large eye ring.
Native to Australia and New Zealand, he’s a migratory bird called a silvereye (Zosterops lateralis). He’s only the size of a kinglet.
This month in the southern hemisphere silvereyes are gathering in flocks because winter is coming. They’ll fly north to warmer climates eating fruit along the way.
So were Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, above) that normally blooms in late March and Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, below) that normally blooms in late April.
It was an odd juxtaposition of two flowers that never bloom at the same time.
Large-flowered Trillium in bloom, Barking Slopes, 25 March 2012 (photo by Kate St. John)
Tonight we’ll have a killing frost. The March flowers may be able to cope but I doubt the April flowers will survive.
