Yearly Archives: 2012

On The Beach

Peregrines

Every afternoon the wintering gulls in Volusia County, Florida stand on the beach at Daytona Beach Shores.  Just before sunset thousands of them stand shoulder to shoulder, facing the wind, unconcerned as people walk by.

The beach is a hotspot for birders because the gulls are so approachable.  It’s easy to see their plumage only 20 feet away though it takes patience to find a rarity among the mass of individuals.

On February 9 during my Florida vacation, Chuck Tague took me to see this spectacle and I met Michael Brothers of the Marine Science Center who monitors and photographs the gulls every day.  We also saw my favorite raptor, a peregrine falcon looking for a meal.

The peregrine is still there.  This week Michael witnessed a rare event which he reported on the BRDBRAIN listserve:

Today, 2/21/12, I stopped by to see the gulls at Daytona Beach Shores and witnessed an amazing sight. I saw a large group of gulls take off from along the beach and assumed that some people had chased the birds off.

When I got closer I found an adult Peregrine had killed a Laughing Gull and it was calmly eating it right on the beach. The bird was amazingly tame and allowed me to sit only 20 feet away and photograph it for 15 minutes or more. It did not seem bothered by beach walkers going by only a few feet away from it.

A few other birders came up and were also able to sit and watch the spectacle. Meanwhile, folks were driving by just behind us, either staring at the bird or oblivious to the rare event right beside them.

Michael Brothers
Marine Science Center
Ponce Inlet, FL.

Watch the slideshow of Michael Brothers’ beautiful peregrine photos. Click on any image to see the slideshow in its own lightbox.

At the end a passerby pauses to watch the bird.  She obviously doesn’t know that this is …(OMG!!)… a peregrine falcon!

 

(all photos by Michael Brothers)

In The Age of Rising Seas

Climate Change, Water and Shore
Location of Doggerbank a.k.a. Doggerland (map from Wikimedia Commons)

It’s another Not-Winter day with a high in the 50’s, no ice on the lakes, no snow on the ground.

Perhaps this lack of ice resembles the end of the last Ice Age, a time when climate change gave to our planet and took things away.

When the last Ice Age was at glacial maximum 18,000 years ago, so much water was sequestered in ice that sea level was 390 feet lower than it is today.  When the climate warmed the ice pulled back enough for people and animals to migrate to previously inaccessible lands.  Some crossed the Bering land bridge to inhabit North America 13,000 years ago.  Climate change provided them with a new place to live.

Back then England was connected to Europe on dry land that stretched from the Netherlands to East Anglia.  The melting glaciers deposited a moraine between them that became the highest ground, Dogger Bank, outlined in red above.  In its heyday Dogger Bank (sometimes called Doggerland) was probably 100 feet above sea level, home to mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, deer and the Stone Age people who hunted them.

The end of the Ice Age took all that away.  The glaciers kept melting, sea level rose, Dogger Bank became an island and was finally swallowed by the sea 8,200 years ago.  The sea kept rising until Dogger Bank is now 49 to 118 feet underwater.  Modern humans didn’t know it was inhabited until fisherman trawled it and found Stone Age tools.

In our own time climate change is giving and taking away as well.  Glacier melt gives us newly accessible land but the ocean will eventually engulf today’s low-lying islands, a frightening prospect to those who live there.  The Maldive islands, with a population the size of the City of Pittsburgh, are going through political unrest (in 2012) as they face the prospect of homelessness in this age of rising seas.

(NASA image of the North Sea with Dogger Bank outlined in red. Click on the image to see the original on Wikipedia.)

Winter Trees: Hophornbeam or Ironwood

Schenley Park, Trees, Winter Weeds & Trees

No matter how you look at it, this tree has confusing names.  My Winter Tree Finder calls it ironwood (it doesn’t even list the hophornbeam name!), but as I learned last weekend ironwood is an alternate name for at least two other trees.

Ironwood’s official name is eastern hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana).  It’s a common tree in the birch family, most easily recognized by its bark which has long, square-edged strips that peel upward.

Hophornbeam wood is very heavy, hard and strong, so durable that when metal was scarce this wood was used to make wheel rims and sleigh runners.  “Horn beam” means hard wood.  “Hop” refers to the tree’s fruit which resembles hops (think beer).  Here’s what the fruit looks like:

 

A closely related tree, the blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana), also carries the hornbeam and ironwood names.  Blue beech’s official name is American hornbeam without the “hop.”  Its bark looks very different:  smooth, blue-gray and muscular.  This earned it the nickname “musclewood.”   Click here to see blue beech bark.

Since hophornbeam is in the birch family, its twigs look very “birch-y” and often carry catkins.  From experience with the Winter Tree Finder, I can tell you it takes a long time to key out this twig.  I recommend identifying the tree by its bark.

 

Ironwood and ironwood, hophornbeam and hornbeam.  I’ll keep them straight by calling this one hophornbeam (or ironwood) and the other one “blue beech” instead of its confusingly similar hornbeam name.

(Bark and twig photos by Kate St. John.  Hop-like fruit photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the hops photo to see its original.)

Snowy Owl Fights Red-Tailed Hawk

Birds of Prey


While cruising the Internet I found a website by Paul Griffin who photographs birds near his home in Wichita, Kansas.

Just like the rest of the U.S., Kansas has seen an influx of snowy owls this winter.  On February 8 Paul Griffin was watching a snowy owl in Butler County, Kansas when he saw a red-tailed hawk try to take its prey.  This was too much for the snowy.  They began to fight!

To see the video, click here or on the screenshot above to visit Paul Griffin’s website.  Scroll down to the bottom and read the narrative.  Then play the video in Quicktime.  (The video will not be visible if you don’t have Quicktime installed on your computer.   If you have trouble seeing the video, visit Griffin’s “Having Video Problems” web page for more information.)

(image from Snowy Fights Hawk video on Paul Griffin’s Wingedthings website)

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p.s. On the topic of snowy owls fighting, Peter Bell shared this link about a resident Chicago peregrine falcon attacking a snowy owl.

Are You My Mother?

Birds of Prey, Peregrines


Last month I was amazed when an American kestrel and a peregrine falcon both perched on the Cathedral of Learning.  The peregrines usually don’t allow any other species up there.

When I reported the incident on PABIRDS Art McMorris, who manages the PA Game Commission’s peregrine program, responded with an amazing story about the two species.

Seventeen ago peregrines were so rare in Pennsylvania that the Game Commission conducted a reintroduction program in the Allentown area.  Downy nestlings were placed in hack boxes and provided with food until they grew up and flew on their own.  Until they were ready to fledge the open side of the hack box was protected with bars.

Jeff Luzenski managed the hack boxes in Allentown and made sure the young peregrines had everything they needed.  The one thing they didn’t have was a mother… until a female kestrel stepped in.

Art told me what Jeff saw:  “A female American Kestrel frequented one of the boxes, apparently attracted by the begging calls of the young peregrines and the sight of the downy young. She would walk into the box (she could fit through the bars), tear bits of meat from the quail provided for the peregrines, and feed them. The maternal instinct was that strong, and the begging calls and behavior of the young peregrines were that universal!  As the peregrines got older, larger and more rambunctious, the kestrel would stay outside the bars while feeding the young.”

Though kestrels are smaller than peregrines (one quarter their weight) they share a family resemblance because both are falcons.  Apparently the resemblance extends to their cries for food.

I imagine the young peregrines asked her, “Are you my mother?”

She was certainly surprised by their size!

(photo of a female American kestrel by Chuck Tague)

Winter Tree Walk: Let’s Look at Bark

Books & Events, Schenley Park, Trees, Winter Weeds & Trees

Sixteen of us gathered at Schenley Park yesterday for a walk among the trees.

As we left the Visitors Center we were treated to far away(!) views of Pitt’s peregrines, Dorothy and E2, sunning on the south face of the Cathedral of Learning. The weather cooperated and the sun came out.

Here we are in the woods just before we began the mind-numbing task of keying out twigs using the Winter Tree Finder.  By the third twig we had had it!  We gave up on twigs and switched to bark.  Thanks to Debbie Bryant for bringing the Bark book.

Right off the bat I learned something new.  When I identified a tree as “ironwood” George Bercik said ironwood was a different tree.  We consulted our field guides and discovered that “ironwood” is the common name for two trees.  I call the eastern hophornbeam “ironwood.”  George calls the American hornbeam “ironwood” (which I learned as “blue beech”).   Both names are correct but confusing.  That’s the problem with common names…

On our route we found black cherry’s “burnt potato chip” bark, dark red oaks, pale beech trees, and hackberry’s “pie crust” bark.  Birds were few but we saw an adult red-tailed hawk hunting in the woods and some gulls flying overhead.

Around 2:30pm the wind picked up so we returned to the Schenley Park Visitor Center for hot chocolate.   What a cozy end to our bark walk.  Thanks to everyone for coming.

p.s. Spring must be coming soon.  The daffodils are up at the Visitors Center.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Beauty Injured in Rochester, 10 Feb 2012

Peregrines


18 February 2012

Peregrine falcons are jousting for territory now that nesting season is only a month away.  On February 10 Rochester, New York falcon watchers reported that Beauty, the queen of the Times Square nest, was found injured on the ground near the Xerox Tower.  She’d been in a fight.

Beauty was taken to a rehabber and is undergoing treatment.  By now her wing no longer droops and the vet has confirmed that the vision in her injured eye is OK.  She just needs time to heal.

Meanwhile, Rochester falcon watchers are trying to determine who won the site from Beauty.  The new female is banded black-over-red with the same red “H” as Unity, a female who attempted to nest four miles away at Kodak Park.

If the new female is Unity, it would be a twist in the saga of Dorothy’s offspring.  Beauty is Dorothy’s daughter, hatched at the Cathedral of Learning in 2007.  Unity is Dorothy’s grand-daughter from Toledo, Ohio, making her Beauty’s niece.  Both of them mated last spring with Archer, Rochester’s resident male peregrine, but neither nest was successful.

Eventually someone will identify the new female peregrine at the Times Square Building.  Only then will we learn if this is another chapter in Peyton Place for Dorothy’s girls.

(photo of Beauty on Mercury’s fist by Carol Phillips, winter 2009-2010)

Confirming: Winter Tree Walk Tomorrow

Books & Events, Schenley Park, Trees, Winter Weeds & Trees

The Winter Tree Walk is “on” as planned, 1:00pm to 3:00pm tomorrow, February 18.  Click here for directions and details.

Expect overcast skies and temperatures 43-45 degrees with some wind and a slight chance of rain.  It will feel like 38-40 degrees.

Dress warmly.  Wear boots.  Most of our route is sidewalk or crushed gravel but be prepared for one 60-foot muddy stretch.  (Route is shown above in red.  See map key below.)  Feel free to bring a hiking stick.  I’m bringing mine for walking and for pointing out trees.

Bring quarters for parking!  Parking rates are $0.25 for 7.5 minutes = $2.00/hour.  For 2 hours you’ll need at least 16 quarters.  More is better.  Note: The white laminated “No Parking” signs attached to the meters ask you not to park from 5:00am – 9:00am because of CMU buggy practice.  Our outing is 4 hours after the “no parking” time, so don’t worry.

Post a comment if you have a question (comments send me email) or call me at 412-622-6558.  I’ll be checking for comments & messages until 1:00pm on Saturday.

See you tomorrow.

(screenshot of Schenley Park from Gmap Pedometer.  Pink circle is Schenley Park Cafe & Visitor Center.  Red is our route.  Green line is location of free parking with dots indicating walking route to the Visitor Center.)