Juvenile red-tailed hawks in Schenley Park, July 2012 (photo by Jim Funderburgh )
6 August 2012
This spring two red-tailed hawk babies fledged from the Panther Hollow Bridge in Schenley Park. They’re already as big as their parents but they don’t act grown up. They’re not wary of humans and they whine when they’re hungry.
At this stage they’re learning how to capture and kill prey with their feet. They’ve been watching their parents for tips but they always hope their parents will deliver dinner. Meanwhile the adults are waiting longer to feed them, hoping the kids will take the hint: “Feed yourself!”
The two juveniles are often found together because Little Brother, the younger of the two, follows his big sister at meal times in case she catches something.
In mid-July Jim Funderburgh found the two hawks exploring the park on their own. Little Brother whined but his sister had nothing to give him so he found a mouse-size object and practiced his prey techniques.
In the video he clutches to kill it … but it surprises him. Yikes!
If you follow Chuck Tague on Facebook, you saw his comment when he posted this photo last year on June 29, 2011:
“Leapin’ Lizard (with a sweet tooth). I caught this Carolina Anole, “Anolis carolinensis”, licking sugar water from a hummingbird feeder near Hontoon Island, Volusia County, FL. This is the first time I saw anoles eat anything but small invertebrates.”
A quick glance at the hummingbird feeder might not have revealed that this isn’t a ruby-throat.
Today’s video is a beautiful, peaceful, bird watching experience by local photographer Bob Greene, Jr.
Originally created for the Three Rivers Birding Club’s 2012 Slide Slam, Bob’s 12.5 minute video cameos the behavior of 35 species accompanied by music from the Celestial Aeon Project.
All of the birds are gorgeous. My favorites are the nest-building house wren and the leaping greater yellowlegs. See if you agree.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy watching birds at your desk.
Here’s something I would never have known had I not read it in Science Daily.
Did you know that the migratory generation of monarch butterflies — the ones that fly to Mexico — are darker red than the earlier, more sedentary generations? The monarchs you’re seeing right now are less red than the ones you’ll see in late August.
You’re probably aware of this color difference if you raise and tag monarchs as Marcy Cunkelman does, but do you know why the last generation is darker? Scientists are on the verge of finding out.
According to Science Daily and PLoS ONE: Recent research, led by Andrew Davis of the University of Georgia, tested 121 captive monarchs in an apparatus called a tethered flight mill where they quantified butterfly flight speed, duration, and distance. They found that monarchs with darker orange wings overall flew longer distances than those with lighter wings. This suggested that pigment deposition during metamorphosis is linked with flight skill traits such as thorax muscle size, energy storage or metabolism.
It makes sense to me that a bug that has to fly to Mexico is born with the traits necessary to do the job, and it’s not too amazing that dark color is one of them. In birds, dark feathers are stronger than light-colored feathers. Perhaps this applies to the wing scales of butterflies, too.
Meanwhile, if you have a butterfly net and a camera you can do some research on your own. Look for monarchs now and again at the end of the month. When your photographs record darker red monarchs in late August, you’ll know why.
Now that it’s August we’ve safely passed the month with the most lightning-related deaths and injuries.
July wins that award because it has the most thunderstorms and the storms are sneaky, popping up suddenly rather than arriving with a front in an orderly fashion. Forecasters can’t predict the timing of these pop-ups; they can only tell us they’re likely. And so we unintentionally take chances outdoors.
The photo above shows what happens when lightning strikes a tree. Sadly, just over a week ago a nine-months pregnant Amish woman was killed by lightning in Somerset County when she took shelter under a tree. Her husband and children were under a different tree and were unharmed — a cruel fate for all involved.
Fortunately, death by lightning is a rare occurrence. 90% of the people struck by lightning survive, but they are often injured for life. Lightning damages the body’s electric grid — the nervous system — so the chronic pain, brain-injury and post-concussion-type symptoms can be very mysterious and seem unrelated to lightning. Steve Marshburn was so frustrated by how little his lightning ailments were recognized that he started Lightning Strike and Electric Shock Survivors International which holds an annual conference for survivors and their families.
"June 26, 1977: Park Ranger Roy C. Sullivan worked many years at Shenandoah National Park. On this day, Roy was struck by lightning for the seventh time earning him the title of "the human lightning conductor." The first time occurred in 1942 as he was working up in a lookout tower. The lightning bolt caused him to lose his big toe nail. In 1969, he was driving along a mountain road when the bolt struck. (Cars and trucks will not protect you if the window is open). He lost his eye brows. In 1970, he was walking across his yard to get the mail when lightning struck. His shoulder was seared. In 1972, he was standing in the office at the ranger station when lightning set his hair on fire. In 1973, after his hair had grown back, he was struck again. His hair was again set on fire and his legs were seared. In 1976, while checking on a campsite, he was struck injuring his ankle. His last and seventh encounter was while fishing. Lightning caused chest and stomach burns. It is not only amazing that Roy was injured seven times by lightning, but it is astounding that he was not killed! His death in his 70's was not related to lightning. He committed suicide. It was never determined why lightning seemed to be attracted to him."
This month we’ll have a little less lightning, but we’re not out of the woods yet. There are thunderstorms in our future. Be careful.
(photo in the public domain from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
p.s. We had impressive lightning in the middle of the night (1 August 2012) — so impressive it woke me up.
Yesterday the Valley News-Dispatch ran another nice story about the Tarentum Bridge peregrines.
In it Mary Ann Thomas wraps up the nesting season with news of recent peregrine observations, information on the juveniles’ next plans, and what we can expect from their parents in the months ahead.
Bonus! The article is illustrated with more of Steve Gosser’s fine photos.
Click here or on Steve’s photo above to read the article.
It’s easy to notice when a new bird arrives in town, much harder to notice when a resident leaves. This month the new arrivals are shorebirds. Has any nesting bird departed yet?
Here’s a tale of two breeders who may have left — or soon will leave — our area.
Baltimore orioles nested in Schenley Park this year as they always do. (I have photographic evidence.) They arrived in late April, quickly set up shop, and fledged young by mid-June. In July they virtually disappeared. The last time I saw an oriole in the park was in June. The last time I heard one was July 12.
Orioles can afford to leave their breeding grounds early because they raise only one brood per year and their young are soon independent after fledging. Mother orioles leave the family in late June. The fathers leave a few days later. Sometimes the young gather in juvenile flocks in August but the adults tend to be solitary and quiet. That’s probably why they seem to be missing.
Dickcissels are another story. They’re so unusual in Pennsylvania that many birders know exactly when they arrived and many will notice when they leave. Every few days there’s a new report on the presence or absence of dickcissels.
Quite soon breeding will be over and the dickcissels will form flocks to head to their wintering grounds in Venezuela. Since they’re not in a rush they often spend August and September in the grain fields of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Notice the word “August.” That’s only two days from now.
I expect the dickcissels will leave our grasslands soon. Schenley Park’s orioles appear to be gone.
I don’t know about your neighborhood but where I live we had very little insect song during the hottest, driest parts of June and July. I was starting to get worried. I missed the happy sound of field crickets.
This has been a confusing year for insects. Many of them emerged in March when temperatures were 20o-30o above normal. I heard a couple of field crickets that month.
I also heard a few begin to sing on a normal schedule in early summer but they soon fell silent. June and July were very hot, very dry, and a little spooky without insect sounds. I wondered if the crickets were alive.
Probably not. Field crickets (Gryllus pennsylvanicus) eat mostly plants including crabgrass, English plantain, switchgrass, common ragweed and chicory. The plants were suffering. So were the crickets.
Ten days ago it began to rain in Pittsburgh. Thanks to almost daily thunderstorms our 2012 rainfall deficit turned into a 1/2″ surplus yesterday.
We have chicory. We have mud! And though there aren’t as many as usual, I now hear the happy sound of field crickets.
Sing on!
(photo of an adult male field cricket by Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org)
Shrubby St. John’s wort (photo by Dianne Machesney)
28 July 2012
Pictured above is shrubby St John’s wort (Hypericum prolificum), one of the many plants that share my last name.
Most St John’s worts are in the Hypericum genus including common St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) which was named “St. John” in Europe because its root was harvested for medicinal and folklore purposes on St. John the Baptist Day, June 24.
“Wort” is an Old English word meaning “root” that appears in the names of many plants including bellwort, bladderwort, golden ragwort, hogwort, toothwort and miterwort. Sometimes it means “plant” instead of root, as in the name of liverwort that was incorrectly thought to cure liver ailments.
As time passed the “St John’s wort” name spread to plants outside the Hypericum genus. In North America, Marsh St Johns wort (Triadenumvirginicum), pictured below, is not a Hypericum and is not even yellow.
