This week Libby Strizzi sent me a link to this beautiful video of Richard Sidey’s expedition photography.
From Antarctica to Greenland, the Falklands to Svalbard, Namibia to Tonga, the next six minutes are filled with restful music, stunning scenery and beautiful birds.
Watch the video in full screen –> here.
It will add new places to your travel Wish List.
Happy Friday!
(video by Richard Sidey on Vimeo)
Throw Back Thursday (TBT)
My upside-down feeder made the goldfinches try new acrobatics in this post from August 2008: Acrobatic Goldfinches
(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
19 August 2015
If you ever see this plant, eradicate it!
My first encounter with Mile-a-minute weed was a decade ago in the Laurel Highlands when a small patch of leaves caught my eye. Such perfect triangles! I didn’t know the plant but if I had I would have uprooted it.
Mile-a-minute weed (Persicaria perfoliata) is an annual, trailing vine, that thrives in sunlight and can grow 6 inches a day(!). It has triangular leaves and perfoliate cups at the stem joints, called ocreae, where it produces flowers and fruit. Notice the recurved thorns on the stems and on the underside of the leaf veins that give it this alternate name: Devil’s tear-thumb.
Persicaria perfoliata tried to invade North America several times but didn’t take hold until the late 1930s when it charmed a nurseryman in York County, Pennsylvania. He received it unintentionally in a shipment of seeds, was fascinated and allowed it to grow. By the time he realized his mistake it was too late. Birds and animals love the fruit and spread the plant.
Mile-a-minute now swamps southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and parts of the Mid-Atlantic and New England. It has spread more than 300 miles since it left York. Click here for the map.
If you think you’ve found Mile-a-minute weed, check a few things before you pull. Does it have perfect-triangle leaves? Does it have perfoliate cups at the stem joints? Does it have thorns? If so, you’ve found the bad stuff.
Before you put on long pants, long sleeves and gloves to pull it out there’s one more question to ask: Does it have fruit? If so, be very careful not to spread the seeds while you pull — collect them first. This annual plant can only return next year if the seeds spread.
I found a fruitless specimen dying in Frick Park last weekend. I had noticed it in July and was finally returning to pull it but, thankfully, park stewards had already dosed the area with therapeutic defoliant. Good! I administered the final blow and pulled it out.
(photos by Kate St. John and Wikimedia Commons)
Now that the breeding season is over and dry weather is suppressing native flowers, ruby-throated hummingbirds are swarming to backyard feeders in Pennsylvania. All of them are small and feisty, but did you know the males are even smaller and more belligerent than the females?
Ruby-throated hummingbirds are sexually dimorphic in size though they’re all so tiny that only a bander could know. At banding, birds are weighed and measured and so we’ve learned that male ruby-throats are about 87% the size of females in wing length and weight(*). Their size is related to their lifestyle.
Male hummingbirds are the original deadbeat dads. Ruby-throated males rush north in the spring to claim territories with lots of food which they vigorously defend with aerial displays, chasing, and bill-to-bill sword battles.
When a female shows up the male doesn’t welcome her at first (he acts annoyed) but he switches to intensive courtship displays when she perches. Good hovering technique really impresses her and to do it well he needs lots of energy, smaller wings, and a lighter body than hers — which he has.
As soon as he’s mated with one lady he looks for the next. He never helps with nesting and young and is so focused on attracting another female and warding off other males that he may forego feeding for much of the day. Banders have found that adult males lose weight in June and July, though they regain it in August.
By the end of the breeding season there are noticeably fewer adult males than females at bird banding stations. In a study done at Powdermill Nature Reserve, Bob Mulvihill and Bob Leberman found that the adult sex ratio is most skewed in the fall when there are 4.1 adult females for every 1 adult male.
Their paper(*), published in The Condor in 1992, describes why more adult males die in the summer than at other times of year:
“As a species, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is near the extreme of small size that is physiologically possible for an endothermic vertebrate. It is conceivable that males approach a critical body mass during the summer. Below this critical mass they may have to abandon nocturnal homeothermy for hypothermic torpor, and may starve overnight or during periods of inclement weather.”
Male ruby-throated hummingbirds are so small and belligerent that it shortens their lives.
(photos taken at the Neighborhood Nestwatch bird banding at Marcy & Dan Cunkelman’s by Kate St. John, 18 July 2015. Bob Mulvihill is the bander holding the birds.)
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(*) The paper by Robert S. Mulvihill and Robert C. Leberman is entitled A Possible Relationship Between Reversed Sexual Size Dimorphism and Reduced Male Survivorship in the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, published in The Condor 94: 480-489. It’s available as a PDF here at Sora. Their work is cited in the ruby-throated hummingbird account at Cornell’s Birds of North America.
Just a reminder that I’m leading a bird and nature walk on Sunday August 23, 8:30am in Schenley Park.
Meet at Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center where Panther Hollow Road meets Schenley Drive. (No confusion this time. We’ll meet at the regular place.)
Dress for the weather. Bring binoculars and field guides if you have them.
Click here for more information and updates if the walk is canceled for bad weather.
I’m sure we’ll see signs of drought … like this wilting jewelweed, alas.
See you soon.
(photo by Kate St. John)
While in Arizona I went on a night outing to Carr Canyon in hopes of seeing owls. Though we merely heard owls, we saw some amazing bugs. The scarab beetles made the trip worthwhile.
The Glorious scarab (Chrysina gloriosa) was stunning with golden stripes on a green body …
… but my favorite was Beyer’s scarab (Chrysina beyeri) at top, a bright green beetle with violet legs. Notice how big he is!
Their beauty helped me understand why people made jewelry with stones carved like beetles (scarab pin below), but I was wrong to assume that beauty motivated the jewelers.
The original scarab amulets were made in Ancient Egypt. The top of the stone was carved in the shape of the Sacred scarab beetle (Scarabeaus sacer), a symbol of the sun god Ra. The flat bottom was carved with hieroglyphs and used as an impression seal. When mounted on a ring, the scarab was held by a swivel so the seal could be rotated up.
Though an insect was sacred to the Egyptians, the beetle they chose is not a beautiful bug. It symbolized the sun god because, just as the sun rolls across the sky every day, their scarab rolls balls of dung. The Sacred scarab is a plain black dung beetle. Click here to see.
The jewel-like beetles I saw in Arizona live only in the western hemisphere. If the Egyptians could have seen the sunlight colors on the Glorious scarab’s legs and wings, perhaps they would have chosen him instead.
p.s. In Arizona I saw two of four Chrysina beetles that occur in the U.S. The only Arizona Chrysina we missed was LeConte’s (Chrysina lecontei). Yes, LeConte again. 😉
(two photos by Kate St. John, two from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the Wikimedia photos to see the originals)
Though the plant looks like a tall weed, this pretty flower is blooming now in fields and open areas.
As its name suggest, Biennial gaura (Gaura biennis) takes two years to bloom. In the first year it’s a rosette of basal leaves that sends down deep roots to survive wet winters and dry summers. In the second year it grows 4-6 feet tall and blooms in August.
The flowers are white when they bloom and turn pink as they fade. I never notice the plant until the flowers are pink.
(photo by Kate St. John)
These yellow capsules are closed but soon they’ll burst open and fling their pollen to the wind.
Last Wednesday I found this giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) growing along Nine Mile Run Trail south of Commercial Street. The plant is so tall that the flower spike is at eye — or should I say nose — level. Fortunately it’s not as tall as the record-setting 21-foot specimen in Texas.
Though the flowers aren’t open yet ragweed season officially begins today, August 15. Hang on to your handkerchiefs!
Learn more here about ragweed and how to identify the ‘common’ one.
(photos by Kate St. John)
UPDATE August 16: The capsules have opened. The pollen is out. Ahhhh-choo!
When photographer Paul Staniszewski saw this bull elk resting in a field in Benezette, he set down his camera bag and moved in for a closer shot.
Soon he heard a sound behind him.
Another bull was checking out his camera bag.
Surrounded!
These 600 to 1,000 pound animals are dangerous when irritated. Fortunately Paul is very familiar with Pennsylvania’s elk and knows their moods. He waited quietly to retrieve his bag.
In early August the bulls are curious but their attitudes will change in a matter of weeks. When the rut (mating season) begins they’ll be irritable and aggressive, sparring for dominance and mating rights.
September and October are a good time to see their power on display as the bulls battle with their impressive antlers. Just don’t get surrounded.
(photos by Paul Staniszewski)
p.s. The Pennsylvania Game Commission has placed radio tags on some of the elk to track their movements. “2D” is one of them.
Throw Back Thursday (TBT):
Speaking of wild turkeys, as I did on Tuesday, here’s more about on their family life and a cute baby picture in this post from August 2008 –> Talking Turkey.
(photo by Tim Vechter)
