Yearly Archives: 2012

Cowbirds Are Calling Their Kids

Bird Behavior, Schenley Park, Songbirds

For weeks I thought that all the brown-headed cowbirds had left Schenley Park, that the females had dumped their eggs in other species’ nests and moved on.  But I was wrong.

The cowbirds arrived in mid-April and immediately made themselves noticeable.  Males called from the treetops and as many as three puffed and courted a single female.  I felt bad for the song sparrows, their most likely victims in Schenley, who would be forced to foster those cowbird eggs-in-the-making.

The cowbirds mated, the females dumped their eggs, and then they disappeared.  Or so I thought.

As expected, in late May I saw and heard cowbird fledglings begging from song sparrow parents.

In early June I was surprised to hear male cowbirds singing again.  According to the literature they’d never left but had spent the intervening weeks monitoring the host nests to make sure their kids alone survived.

By now the young cowbirds are self-sufficient but they were raised in a song sparrow world.  It’s time for them to learn how to be cowbirds (and for their mothers to lay another batch of eggs) so their fathers are singing.

“Hey, kid.  You’re a cowbird.  Come with me.”

 

(photo by Brian Herman)

p.s.  See Meredith Lombard’s photo of a chipping sparrow foster parent feeding a cowbird fledgling and a Louisiana waterthrush with its baby cowbird. Notice that the foster parent is smaller than the baby.  🙁

Midsummer

Books & Events

Today is the astronomical northern solstice. In its honor there will be some astronomical (huge) parties.

Midsummer is not a big deal here, far below the 50th parallel, but it’s big in Scandinavia where winters are long, cold and very dark.

Today is winter’s antithesis: Light and warm, the longest day, celebrated since pagan times.

When Christianity arrived in Northern Europe the Church placed the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on this date to make it a Christian celebration. There are festivals, bonfires, feasting, singing, and (in Sweden) dancing around the maypole.

Midsummer Maypole in Sölvesborg, Sweden (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Erecting the Midsummer Maypole in Sölvesborg, Sweden (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

And there are plays.  You already know about today’s name from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

So as you note the solstice today you might call it the “beginning” of summer but it’s Midsummer to those in the know.

 

(*) Today, 20 June 2012, the solstice officially occurs at 7:09pm (EDT).

(photo from Shutterstock)

Dickcissels

Songbirds

This is my favorite photo of a dickcissel though she’s not what you usually see in the field.  This bird is female so you won’t find her singing from a perch like her mate who has a black throat and bib.

Dickcissels (Spiza americana) are so rare in western Pennsylvania that I had never seen one until last weekend.  They normally nest in the Great Plains but they’re nomadic and will move their range when food is scarce.  This summer they’ve come east to Mercer, Lawrence, Crawford, Clarion, Indiana and Allegheny Counties.

These birds are well studied because their population declined precipitously from 1966 to 1978.  Scientists thought dickcissels would go extinct by the year 2000 but that didn’t happen because the studies revealed the twofold cause.  One was the loss of un-mowed grassland habitat for nesting.  The other larger cause was death on the wintering grounds.

Dickcissels actually spend more of their lives in Venezuela than they do in the U.S.  While it’s winter here they live in huge flocks in Venezuela where they eat grasses and grains, sometimes in agricultural fields.  A single roost may contain 10% to 30% of the entire species population so when frustrated Venezuelan farmers killed entire roosts with organophosphate and organochlorine pesticides (DDT), the birds were suddenly in serious trouble. Thankfully non-lethal control measures were put in place, wholesale killing was outlawed, and the dickcissel population stabilized.

But these grassland birds are still rare here. This summer provides an unusual opportunity to see them in western Pennsylvania. Check for sightings on PABIRDS or eBird and visit the grasslands soon.  Male dickcissels will sing while the females nest but the flocks will leave in August.  They have a long trip ahead of them.

(photo by Bobby Greene)

p.s. Here’s what a male dickcissel looks like.  The species is named for his song: “dick! dick! siss siss siss”  Click here to hear.

New Tenants

Nesting & Courtship

Remember Marcy Cunkelman’s bird house that hosted a family of chickadees last month?

After the babies fledged, the house was unoccupied.  The chickadees didn’t reuse it because they raise only one brood per year.

The birdhouse was vacant, but not for long.  New tenants have already moved in.

Above, a tree swallow peers out of the nestbox opening last week.

Inside, there are five eggs surrounded by fluffy feathers.

If all goes well there will soon be five mouths to feed.

(photos by Marcy Cunkelman)

Railroad Lilies

Plants & Fungi

When I was growing up I didn’t know the name of these common summer flowers. Later on I learned to call them Railroad Lilies.

Their real name is Orange Daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) and they’re a garden plant gone wild.  As a cultivar from East Asia, their seeds are sterile so they spread by fibrous roots and rhizomes.  Once established, they’re hard to get rid of and are even considered invasive in Wisconsin.  (In Pennsylvania they’re on the invasive species Watch List.)

Their last name, daylily, comes from the fact that each flower blooms for only one day.  Their choice of habitat earned them two nicknames:  Ditch Lily and Railroad Lily.

They’re blooming now in Pennsylvania.  Despite their weedy reputation they certainly dress up the landscape.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

Pea Trees

Plants & Fungi, Schenley Park, Trees

There’s a bumper crop of pea pods on the redbud trees in Schenley Park.

Ten weeks ago the trees had delicate pink flowers and only a hint of leaves.

This month their trunks and branches are dripping with peas.

Normally the pods are hidden by the foliage but this year they’re so prolific you can see them easily. Check the redbud trees on the right as you descend the stairs behind the Visitors’ Center.

It’s a good year for the pea trees.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Watch These Bridges

Peregrines

Peregrine season isn’t over yet. Not only do we have two peregrine families on buildings but we now have five (5!) active sites on Pittsburgh area bridges. Four nests are confirmed, the fifth is very likely.

Here’s a roundup of bridge news beginning with our newest site, then traveling upstream. The PA Game Commission appreciates peregrine watchers at all the sites, especially at this newest one.

Neville Island I-79 Bridge (also called the Glenfield Bridge) over the Ohio River, Glenfield-to-Neville-Island  (photo by Robert Strovers on Wikimedia Commons)
New!  For five years peregrines have been seen near the I-79 Neville Island Bridge but this month they gave themselves away.  On June 9 a peregrine fledgling was rescued from the Ohio River below the bridge and sent to a rehabber.  Art McMorris, the PA Game Commission’s Peregrine Coordinator, needs your help monitoring this site.  If you go:  The peregrines favor the Neville Island end of the main span.  Best views might be from the marina on the Glenfield side.  Please report findings on PABIRDS or leave a comment here and I’ll send you Art’s contact information.

 


Monaca East Rochester Bridge over the Ohio River, US Route 51, Monaca-to-East-Rochester. (screenshot from timesonline.com video)
Peregrine falcons have been monitored at this bridge since 2007.  This year three males and one female chick were banded on May 22.  They fledged in early June and can often be seen perched on the power-towers on either side of the river.  Click on the photo to see an old video of the 2008 banding from Beaver County Times Online.

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McKees Rocks Bridge over the Ohio River at McKees Rocks. (photo by Robert Strovers, Wikimedia Commons)
Joe Fedor first noticed peregrines at this bridge in 2008.  Since then they’ve been here every year.  Sometimes their nest is found, sometimes not.  This June 1 the Game Commission confirmed their nest by finding a feathered chick too old to band.  The McKees Rocks Bridge is so large that it’s hard to see the peregrines unless they perch somewhere else — such as on the power tower near Alcosan.

 

 


Westinghouse Bridge over Turtle Creek valley, US Route 30 at East Pittsburgh. (historic photo by Joseph Elliott, Library of Congress)
Peregrine chicks were first banded at this bridge in 2010. This year the Game Commission confirmed a nest with four eggs on June 1. That’s late for eggs in Pennsylvania but it may be because there’s a new adult female here. (She hatched at the Ironton-Russell Bridge in Ironton, Ohio in 2009.) Was there a territorial dispute and a new nesting attempt? We’ll know more by early July when the Game Commission re-checks the nest.

 


Tarentum Bridge, PA Route 366 over the Allegheny River at Tarentum.  (photo by Sharon Leadbitter)
Present since 2010, this is the first year a peregrine nest has been confirmed. Two chicks fledged early this week and the entire family has been putting on a show since then.  Yesterday Sharon Leadbitter watched them flying low over the river and snapped this photo of an adult perched on the super-structure.

Right now Tarentum is the most fun to watch.   Neville Island I-79 is most in need of watchers.

(photo credits above.  Click on each image to see its original)

p.s. I forgot to mention 40th Street Bridge over the Allegheny River. Peregrines have been seen there. Check it out!

Baby Falcon?

Birds of Prey, Peregrines

On Tuesday morning I got a phone call from University of Pittsburgh Facilities Management that made my heart fall to the floor.

Phil Hieber said that an injured baby falcon, possibly a peregrine, had been found at the Posvar Hall garage.  The people who found it had put it in a box and wanted to know what to do.

My first thought was, “Oh no!”  and then I remembered that people often mistake other birds of prey for young peregrines.  And I reminded myself that I’d seen all three juveniles high on the Cathedral of Learning only two hours earlier and they had not been lower than the 30th floor for days.

I couldn’t afford to leave work Tuesday morning but if this was one of our “juvies” I would drop everything and run to Pitt.  How could I tell it was a peregrine over the phone?

Was the bird banded?  Phil said it was not so I knew it wasn’t one of our peregrines.  (Whew!)

I urged them to call the ARL Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Verona, 412-793-6900, and drive the bird over there.  Then I emailed Jill Argall at the Wildlife Center to let her know an injured bird was on its way, and I asked her to let me know what it was.

Later that day Jill replied that it was a kestrel and it was doing fine.

Indeed it was a “baby” (small) falcon.

American kestrels are our smallest falcon so they do resemble peregrines.  I know they’re in Oakland because I’ve seen them on campus.  Last Saturday an adult male kestrel flew by the Cathedral of Learning and perched on the flagpole at Carnegie Museum.

I’m glad to know the kestrel is doing well.  Sighs of relief all around!

 

(photo of a kestrel on a flagpole (though not at Pitt) by Brian Herman)

p.s. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and find an injured animal or bird, call the ARL Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Verona, 412-793-6900.