Yearly Archives: 2012

Merely Funny

Mammals

Today, we’ll have some fun with this video starring meerkats.  But first, just one educational paragraph.

Meerkats are a small type of mongoose that live in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa.  Their bodies are about a foot long, their tails even longer, and they weigh 1.6 pounds.  Meerkats live in social groups of 20-30 individuals most of whom are siblings, offspring of the alpha pair who make sure they’re the only ones in the troupe allowed to breed successfully.

Other than the serious business of foraging and competition, meerkats are pretty funny.  For instance, they fall asleep.

This video combines some of the funniest clips from four documentaries on meerkats with the Overture to Carmen by Georges Bizet.

Have a laugh.  Happy Friday.  🙂

(video by MeerkatGal  from YouTube)

Migration Has Already Begun

Books & Events, Migration, Water and Shore

It’s still summer — especially today with a forecast heat index of 100oF — but fall migration has already begun.

Shorebirds are on the move and this year we may see some rarities in land-locked western Pennsylvania because the drought has lowered water levels and exposed many mud flats.

Last Sunday Shawn Collins saw sanderlings at Tamarack Lake in Crawford County and on Tuesday five American avocets were a one-day-wonder at Yellow Creek State Park in Indiana County.

Check the edges of local lakes and you’ll likely find killdeer, sandpiper “peeps,” spotted sandpipers, solitary sandpipers, and lesser yellowlegs.  If you’re lucky you’ll find a surpise like the avocet pictured above.

And if thunderstorms or heat force you indoors, stop by Steve Gosser’s exhibit at Penn State’s New Kensington campus to see beautiful photographs of birds.

Steve’s one-man show, My Feathered Friends – Bird Portraits, runs through Friday, July 27.  This is your last chance to see it.   Click here for directions.

(photo by Steve Gosser)

In Free Fall

Beyond Bounds, Musings & News, Songbirds

Last Sunday the Orlando Sentinel reported the grim news that the population of this bird, the Florida grasshopper sparrow, has plunged so far and so fast that it may go extinct in as little as three years.

Florida grasshopper sparrows are a unique non-migratory subspecies of the grasshopper sparrow that live their entire life in Florida’s dry prairie habitat.  Their loyalty to this habitat has made them endangered.

90% of the prairie is gone, converted to cattle ranches, farms, and development in the past 150 years.   By 1986 the Florida grasshopper sparrow was placed on the Endangered Species List.  The birds held their own in three remaining prairie preserves until recent population surveys found less than 200 individuals left.  It is now the most endangered bird in the continental U.S.

Loss of habitat obviously caused this bird’s decline but scientists say other factors have sent it over the cliff.  One factor is fire ants, accidentally imported from South America in the 1930’s.  Florida grasshopper sparrows nest on the ground.  The fire ants overwhelm their nests and eat the baby birds so there are no young sparrows to reach maturity in the next generation.

If this trend continues Florida grasshopper sparrows will go extinct when the last adults die.  Meanwhile U.S. Fish and Wildlife and other members of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow Working Group consider this a wildlife emergency and are focusing intensive efforts to save the bird.

Back in January 2008, Dan Irizarry visited a banding station at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve where he photographed this bird.  Little did he know… little did we know… that this may be one of the last living Florida grasshopper sparrows on earth.

If you’ve seen a Florida grasshopper sparrow you are lucky indeed.

(photo by Dan Irizarry. Click on the image to see Dan’s Flickr set from Kissimmee.)

 

Drought As A Technical Term

Weather & Sky

A week ago it was clear that the western edge of Pennsylvania was in a drought and it was likely to get worse.

On Thursday July 19, NOAA released its weekly Drought Monitor map and Pennsylvania DEP declared a Drought Watch for 15 western counties including Beaver County where the 90-day rainfall deficit was 5.5″ and Lawrence and Mercer where it was 4.9″.  On that day in Pittsburgh our deficit for the past 49 days (June 1) was 3.62″.

The Drought Watch called for a voluntary 5% reduction in water use and puts large water users (industry and water companies) on notice that they should plan for reduced water intake.

The situation was bad.

And then it rained — hard — three days in a row.   Almost 2″ of rain fell near the airport July 18-20, probably more than that in the city.  The streams in Schenley Park were flowing, the grass turned green, and the ground was muddy.  Ah, rain!

But we shouldn’t get too cocky.  Technically speaking, we are still under a Drought Watch and there’s reason to keep it that way.  Three days of rain may have been a temporary respite.

Last Thursday NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center also released the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook for July 19 through October 31, predicting where drought would persist, develop or improve.   All of western Pennsylvania and half of West Virginia are slated to become drier in the next three months as shown on the map below.

The scary part, as Georgia, Indiana, western Kentucky and the western U.S. know, is that drought breeds drought.  When the soil and plants are very dry, there is very little evaporation and transpiration and the dry air “tends to inhibit widespread development of or weaken existing thunderstorm complexes” so the thunderstorms pass us by.   According to NOAA’s forecast discussion, “It would require a dramatic shift in the weather pattern to provide significant relief to this drought, and most tools and models do not forecast this.”

So we hope for the best and look for this week’s revised outlook on Thursday.

Meanwhile, when I look at the maps I almost feel survivors’ guilt for having had some rain last week while other parts of the U.S. are suffering.

(images from National Drought Monitor Center and the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center.  Click on the images to see their source)

July 24, 1:30pm: Two downpours today! When I write about drought it rains.

Less than a month later, August 16, 2012: The revised drought forecast takes Pennsylvania out of the drought zone.  See below.

Trees Are For Birds … And People Too

Books & Events, Plants & Fungi, Trees

If you love birds, you can’t help but love trees.

Trees provide many birds with food, shelter, and a great place to perch.  In southwestern Pennsylvania most of our birds are found in trees.  We even have ducks that nest in hollow trees.  (Wood ducks)

Trees are good for people too.  Did you know …

  • Trees make the air cleaner by filtering airborne pollutants, absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
  • Just three strategically placed trees can decrease your utility bills by 50%.
  • Trees reduce noise pollution by absorbing sounds.
  • Hospital patients who can see a tree outside their windows have almost one full day less recovery time and need fewer painkillers.
  • Trees around your home can increase its property value by 15% or more.

Sadly many places in cities and suburbs lack trees and miss out on these benefits.  In Pennsylvania there’s a statewide program called Treevitalize that works to change that.

Treevitalize helps people plant and maintain trees along neighborhood streets, in business districts, in parks, and along degraded streams.  In my area the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Tree Pittsburgh, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and DCNR joined together to form Treevitalize Pittsburgh and carry out the work here.  Their goal is 20,000 new trees!

The fall planting season is fast approaching so now’s the time to prepare.  You can learn how to help plant and maintain trees for your own neighborhood at Tree Pittsburgh’s Tree Tender workshops.

  • There’s a workshop this Saturday, July 28, 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Millvale Community Center, 416 Lincoln Avenue in Millvale.
  • Or attend the next one on Saturday September 15, 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s offices, 800 Waterfront Drive on Washington’s Landing.

Register online at www.TreePittsburgh.org or call 412-362-6360.

It’s a great opportunity to help neighborhood birds, and people too.

And remember the next time you complain that a tree is messy or inconvenient, look up in that tree.  I bet you’ll find a bird.  🙂

(Tree facts from TreeVitalize Pittsburgh. Photo by Kate St. John)

These Are Not Moths

Insects, Schenley Park

Last weekend in Schenley Park I noticed white fuzz and a row of decorations on the stems of yellow jewelweed.  When I stepped closer I learned these weren’t decorations at all.  They were insects that resembled tiny moths.

I sent photos to my bug experts Chuck Tague and Monica Miller asking, “What are these insects and is the white fuzz related to them?”

Chuck and Monica agreed — these are flatid planthoppers — but they wouldn’t speculate on the species.  Some flatids are so hard to identify they have to be dissected by an expert.

All the planthoppers have similar lifestyles:

  • They often resemble parts of plants as a means of camouflage.
  • They move very, very slowly so as not to attract attention but they hop like grasshoppers when disturbed.  The group I photographed may have been moving but I never noticed.  I wish I’d known they hopped. I might have tried disturbing them.
  • Though planthoppers suck juice from plants they rarely reach the ‘pest’ level.
  • Adult females secrete a waxy substance that protects the eggs and young from water and predation.  This is part of what makes up the white fuzz.
  • Their nymphs are ghostly white with fuzzy, wispy tails.  They’re so small they look like fuzz without magnification.

The nymphs are kind of cute except their faces are spooky.  Here’s a close-up from bugwood.org to show you what I mean.

Planthopper nymph by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org

So when you see fuzz on a plant, take a second look.  It might be something really interesting.

(photos of adult planthoppers by Kate St. John. Planthopper nymph by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org)

Sky Divers

Peregrines

Peregrine falcons are famous for their sky diving speed.  How to measure it?  Dive with them.

In this video a British falconer taught his female peregrine, Lady, to stoop at a yellow lure from a hot air balloon.  Then he took her up with two skydivers who strapped together and jumped, holding the lure.

Lady followed in a stoop and caught up to them within seconds.  To do so she had to accelerate to over 180 mph.  Perhaps she thought they were going a little slowly.  The divers saw her play in the air nearby as they fell.

In the end Lady got her prize and proved that peregrines dive faster than humans.

Of course they do.  Peregrines are the original sky divers.  😉

 

(video from BBC Worldwide on YouTube)

Milkweed Transformation

Plants & Fungi

How does a Common Milkweed flower go from a pink ball to a spiny gray container of fluffy seeds?

The shapes don’t resemble each other so it’s hard to imagine how one transforms into the other.

To solve the mystery I photographed milkweed’s stages and assembled them into a slideshow.  Watch carefully in the slideshow below as…

  1. The 5-sided buds are not yet open.
  2. Each flower opens into an unusual 5-pointed shape with a cylinder in the middle. (This photo is by Marcy Cunkelman.)
  3. The flowers fade and droop.  Notice the flower base, the ovary, where the petals are attached.
  4. Completely faded, the fertilized ovaries begin to swell.  This is the critical step that shows where the seed pod develops.
  5. The swelling ovaries begin to take on the classic seed pod shape.
  6. Some of the new pods still have a faded flower on top.
  7. In July the pods are green.
  8. In December they are dry and gray.  They crack open to release their fluffy seeds.

Now you know milkweed’s secret.

 

(flower with black-and-orange milkweed bug by Marcy Cunkleman; all other photos by Kate St. John)