Though he could easily carry two, the crow spent more than a minute trying to pick up a third. At 40 seconds into the video he was salivating so much that he “dripped” onto the platform.
Finally he achieved his goal and flew away. Two seconds later we see why he had to take so many in one trip. Competition!
p.s. The feeders are in Manitouwadge, Ontario, a town so remote that it’s an 11.5 hour drive from Toronto and 8 hours from Duluth. Click here (and zoom out) to see it on Google maps.
Winter Solstice sunset at Kolkata, India, 22 Dec 2011 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Now matter where you are on Tuesday December 22 at 4:48 am UTC — in Calcutta, India (above) or the frozen Yukon — you’ll experience the northern solstice. (NOTE that December 22, 4:48am is Universal Time! In Pittsburgh the solstice is at 11:48pm on Monday December 21.)
Here at latitude 40o North we think the solstice is a northern daylight event but it’s actually an astronomical event that happens everywhere on Earth at the same moment. At the North Pole there’s nothing to see; it’s been dark for a long time. In Australia they’re having their longest summer day.
In Pittsburgh we reached our shortest number of (rounded) minutes on December 17 — 9 hours and 17 minutes — and we’ll stay there, gaining only seconds per day, until December 26. Then on the last day of the year we’ll begin to gain a minute a day. At last!
This month in Schenley Park I noticed lots of yellow hulls on the ground. Somewhat like pistachios, they were smaller and brighter with a ridge inside instead of on the edge.
Here’s what I saw when I looked down.
The hulls came from somewhere so I looked up to find the source: Oriental bittersweet.
Oriential bittersweet fruits, Schenley Park, 7 Dec 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)
Each berry was encased in a three-part pod that burst open to reveal the fruit. You can see three faint lines on the berries where the ridges made impressions.
And there above me, quietly eating the berries, was a big flock of robins knocking more yellow hulls to the ground.
Snowy Owl, Amherst Island 2008 (photo by Kim Steininger)
(A day late for Throw Back Thursday…)
Did you know that some snowy owls stay on the Arctic Ocean all winter? Seven years ago satellite tracking technology revealed their unusual lifestyle.
Read more about the snowy owls who live on ice in the dark in this 2008 article: Surprise! We hunt at sea.
p.s. Ever since the snowy owl irruption of 2013-2014, Project Snowstorm has satellite tagged and tracked some of the snowy owls who visit the Lower 48 States. Click here to see maps and follow their stories of these amazing birds.
Wild turkeys in snow. How many? (photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
This weekend kicks off 12 Christmas Bird Counts in the Pittsburgh area, half of them this Saturday, December 19.
Christmas Bird Counts (CBCs) are an annual opportunity to tally birds in the Western Hemisphere. Each count is a 15-mile diameter circle manned by volunteers who count the birds they see in a single 24-hour period.
Anyone can join the fun. Count in the field with other participants or watch at your backyard feeder. Just contact the count circle coordinator and he or she will handle the rest.
Golden eagle at the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, 1 Nov 2011 (photo by Michael Lanzone)
In late autumn birders visit the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, hoping this iconic bird will fly by. On a good day more than 30 golden eagles migrate past the site.
After years of observation we now take for granted that golden eagles use the Allegheny Front as a migration corridor but that wasn’t always the case.
Golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) occur worldwide in the northern hemisphere but their stronghold in North America is in the American West. They’re rarely seen in the East so it was a surprise when people saw so many at the Allegheny Front.
Where were they coming from? Where were they going?
This tantalizing information got a boost when the group upgraded their tracking equipment. Beginning in 2008 most of the birds were fitted with GPS-GSM units that record more frequent data points and transmit over the cell network.
Here’s an EGEWG map from Katzner Lab showing movements of 14 golden eagles, Spring 2012 to Winter 2013. These eagles were fitted with GPS-GSM units. (Solid lines are winter/summer homes; dashed lines are migration.)
Golden eagle movements in eastern North America, satellite telemetry, Spring 2012-Winter 2013, part 2 (map courtesy of Katzner Lab)
Thanks to many years of tracking, we now know that the golden eagles of eastern North America breed in Canada and spend the winter in the southern and central Appalachians. This information, plus on-going research, helps protect the eagles and their habitat.
Click here to view maps at Katzner Lab and find out where the golden eagles go.
The phrase “The First Robin of Spring” is misleading. We think it means that robins leave for the winter. Not so in Pittsburgh. We always have robins in December.
American robins (Turdusmigratorius) are very versatile birds. They change their diet for the season, eating invertebrates in summer and fruit in winter. They take advantage of invasive species, especially earthworms and bush honeysuckle. They move quickly to places where we’ve changed the landscape, adopting our farms and suburbs. And they’re flexible on migration.
Studies have shown that American robins migrate an average of 300-750 miles but that average doesn’t tell the whole story. Some flocks head directly south, arriving in Florida by early December. Others take their time, pausing when they find abundant food along the way. Still others stay home or travel less than 60 miles from their breeding grounds especially in the last two decades as the climate warms.
Every December, huge flocks of robins feed and roost in Allegheny County. In 2008 Scott Kinsey discovered 100,000 of them roosting in Carnegie. The flocks stay through the month and are counted on the Christmas Bird Counts. Then, when the fruit is gone, the ground freezes, or there’s snow cover the robins move on.
In Pittsburgh they normally don’t leave until January.
Little brown bat with white nose syndrome (photo by USFW via Wikimedia Commons)
14 December 2015
Here’s news that surprised me about white nose syndrome, the disease that’s wiping out bat populations in eastern North America.
White nose syndrome (WNS) is caused by a cold-loving fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, that thrives in temperatures 40-200 C (390– 680 F), which happens to be the winter temperature in caves where bats hibernate.
The fungus attaches to the bat’s exposed skin — nose, wings, ears — where it looks like white powder. It doesn’t kill bats directly. Instead it eats away at their skin, causing irritation, dehydration, and higher metabolism that burns up their fat stores.(*) The bats rouse themselves and fly around on mid-winter days looking for food. There aren’t any flying insects to eat so they starve and die. Millions of them.
Bat researchers are now in a race against time to stop the fungus. Meanwhile they found out where it came from: Europe.
How did it get here?
In The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Elizabeth Kolbert describes its probable path as told by NY DEC’s Al Hicks. The first record — in 2006 — was photographed in “a cave connected to Howes Cave, a popular tourist destination which offers, among other attractions, flashlight tours and underground boat trips. “It’s kind of interesting that the first record we have of this is photographs from a commercial cave in New York that gets about two hundred thousand visits a year,” Hicks told me.”
And so it’s likely that someone with spores on their clothing or gear got on a plane in Europe and visited a cave near Albany.
It’s amazingly easy to introduce an alien invader.
(photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
Here’s a plant that’s quite visible in my neighborhood this month even though the growing season has ended. I don’t know what it is but I suspect it’s an alien and possibly invasive because it shows off a number of imported/invasive features.
Imported: Its leaves are very green, suggesting it’s winter light trigger expects a more northern location.
Imported: It’s still producing flowers in December, another indication that it believes winter hasn’t arrived.
Invasive: It grows in waste places, especially in disturbed soil at the edge of sidewalks.
Invasive: It can become very dense and take over the area where it’s growing.
Here’s a look at the arrangement of the stems. Notice that they’re hairy.
Unknown plant: a look at the stems (photo by Kate St. John)
And here’s the flower. I forced this one open.
Unknown flower (photo by Kate St. John)
One more look at a dense mat of it.
A dense mat of … (photo by Kate St. John)
Do you know the name of this plant? My guess is that it’s from Asia, perhaps Japan.
If you know the answer, please leave a comment!
LATER: Wow! You’re quick! Fran, Carolyn and Doris have already identified it as common mallow (Malva neglecta) or cheeseweed. Read the comments to find out why it has this unusual name. By the way, it’s edible.
E2 and Hope courting at the peregrine nest at the Cathedral of Learning, 8 Dec 2015 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at University of Pittsburgh)
It’s been 12 days since the new female peregrine, Hope, appeared on camera at the Cathedral of Learning. In that time she and E2 have courted at the nest every day, sometimes for extended periods.
Off camera I see them flying around the Cathedral of Learning or perching high to watch the world go by. It’s rare that I see only one peregrine on campus now.
I’m also happy that Hope needs no encouragement to visit the nest. Yesterday she arrived on camera and chirped for E2 to join her. When he didn’t come, she perched at the front looking up. “Hey! Where are you?”
Hope scans the sky, 11 Dec 2015 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at University of Pittsburgh)
These are hopeful signs that she means to stay at the Cathedral of Learning.
Meanwhile Downtown at the Gulf Tower, the new gravel was too tempting for a peregrine to pass up. Yesterday morning Louie stopped in to check it out.
Louie visits the new digs at the Gulf Tower (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at the Gulf Tower in Downtown Pittsburgh)
I hope he convinces Dori to take a look, too.
(photos from the National Aviary falconcams in Pittsburgh)
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