On sunny days this eastern screech-owl perches motionless in an unusual tree opening. He’s not there every day in winter, but he’s never there when spring comes.
Though the range maps says eastern screech-owls live in Pittsburgh year round, this individual bird probably lives in Schenley during the winter and goes somewhere else to nest.
Range map of eastern screech-owl (linked from All About Birds website)
Sorry … I’m not going to tell you exactly where he is because too much public attention will scare him off. And if you find him, please don’t publicize his location for the same reason.
(photo by Kate St. John)
p.s. In January this blog has 400-700 readers a day. That’s a lot of public attention.
Bald eagle pair at Hays nest, 11 Jan 2017 (photo from Hays Eaglecam at ASWP’s Pittsburgh Eagles Facebook page)
Pennsylvania’s bald eagle season is warming up. Eagle pairs are visiting their nests and the first egg in Pittsburgh is only four weeks away. Here’s how to stay in touch while we wait for that happy event.
The Hays eaglecam in the City of Pittsburgh is broadcasting all day but not overnight until February because its solar batteries aren’t getting enough sun. (No surprise in Pittsburgh’s overcast winter.)
The Harmar eaglecam above Route 28 near the Oakmont Bridge is currently running overnight but may need to go into No-Night mode for the same reason.
You can Chat about eagles with other watchers by clicking on the chat button to the left of the camera views.
If you missed a few days of activity and want to catch up, visit ASWP’s Pittsburgh Eagles Facebook page for recent news. The Hays photo (above) and screenshot (below) are from their January 11 Facebook post.
Screenshot from Pittsburgh Eagles Facebook page (click on the image to see this post on Facebook)
The eagles aren’t always on camera, though, and the nestcams don’t show them in flight. When the weather’s fine you can see a lot from the ground. Click here for directions to the Hays viewing area or see excellent photos online by Annette Devinney and DanaNesiti, two of the many photographers who visit our Pittsburgh area eagles.
So keep on watching in the days ahead. If history is any guide, the first egg will appear at Hays February 14-20.
It won’t be long now!
(photo and screenshot from ASWP’s Pittsburgh Eagles Facebook page; click on the images to see the Facebook post)
Crows in a tree on Thackeray (photo by Peter Bell)
Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock has moved … just a little. No longer at Heinz Chapel they’ve now chosen the London plane trees between Schenley Plaza and Carnegie Library.
In front of the Library the air smells fishy, the sidewalks are blotched, and it’s slippery when it rains. When folks figure out they’re walking on crow poo their reaction is “Yuk!” and then everyone wants to know, “How many crows are there?”
I don’t know. We’ll have to count. Easier said than done!
Counting a crow roost is an unexpected challenge. Crows prefer tall well-lit trees where they perch close together all over the top. You can’t see them from street level because the streetlights shine in your eyes and obscure them. Sneaky crows.
However, you can see them from above. Peter Bell took this photo from an upper floor at the Chevron Science Center in 2011. As you can see, the crows are well lit and countable. The Cathedral of Learning would be a good vantage point for the Library crows.
Count them 1-by-1? Nope! There are far too many crows and they shuffle around.
To get a good estimate, wait until the crows settle in for the night (after 6:00pm) then count one tree full of crows, count the number of trees, and multiply. Here’s how.
1. Pick a typical roost tree and count 10 crows in it, circled below.
One group of 10 crows in a tree (photo by Peter Bell, retouched)
2. Assume the 10-crow circle represents the size of 10-crow groups. Count the number of circles that have crows in them. See below. (I made the circles bigger where the crows are sparse.)
10-crow areas in a roost tree (photo by Peter Bell, retouched)
3. Multiply the number of circles by 10 to get the number of crows in the tree. In this tree it’s 10*23 so my 1-tree estimate is 230.
4. Now count the number of trees with roosting crows. I think there may be 20 to 30 trees full of crows at the Library so …
5. Multiply the 1-tree count by the number of trees. 20*230 is 4,600 30*230 is 6,900.
Before I did this exercise I guessed there were 4,000 crows at the Library.
Hmmm.
Anyone up for a challenge? Want to count crows from the Cathedral of Learning?
p.s. The Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count counted 25,000 crows on 1 January 2017. I know this doesn’t include all of them! [My husband jokes that if counting by circles is too difficult, count the number of crow legs and divide by two.]
What does extinction look like? I visited a large display case at Carnegie Museum’s Bird Hall to find out.
In the case of extinct birds, each species has a story. The reason for extinction is often well known but the exact date of disappearance is usually obscure, though there are exceptions.
Take, for instance, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) shown above. Native to eastern North America, we would have seen passenger pigeons in Pennsylvania if we’d lived 200 years ago but relentless uncontrolled hunting wiped out their population until it crashed. The last passenger pigeon died in captivity on 1 September 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo. Extinction was caused by humans because we liked to eat them.
Guadalupe Storm-Petrel specimen, Bird Hall at Carnegie Museum (photo by Kate St. John)
The Guadalupe storm-petrel (Oceanodroma macrodactyla) disappeared more quietly. Always hard to distinguish from its close relative, Leach’s storm-petrel, this bird nested only on Guadalupe Island off the coast of Mexico’s Baja California. Cats were introduced there in the late 19th century and by 1912 no storm-petrels could be found. According to Wikipedia, “Only old, abandoned burrows and the decayed remains of storm petrels killed by cats were found in the years thereafter.” Extinction was caused by cats introduced by humans.
Laysan Crake (Laysan rail) specimen, Bird Hall at Carnegie Museum (photo by Kate St. John)
The Laysan crake or Laysan rail (Porzana palmeri) couldn’t fly but that didn’t matter because he lived on the remote island of Laysan. Unfortunately his population crashed due to habitat loss when humans introduced rabbits to his island home. The final blow came in 1944 when rats jumped ship onto Laysan. Extinction was forced by two human-introduced species: rabbits and rats.
There are many stories in the case of extinct birds. Learn why they disappeared at Carnegie Museum‘s Bird Hall.
Terzo looks; 2nd chick is gone (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
When the female peregrine Hope moved from Tarentum to the Cathedral of Learning, I thought 2016 would be calm and joyful. Instead it was filled with drama.
Here’s a recap of last year’s Pitt peregrine activity, complete with a slideshow of 2016 highlights.
Nesting season started with Hope (2008) and E2 (2005) as the resident pair.
Though they won’t lay eggs until March or April, red-tailed hawks are already thinking ahead in western Pennsylvania.
On sunny days in January, they claim their nesting territory by soaring above their chosen land, a gesture that says “This is mine!”
Red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) are generally monogamous and mate for life. The pairs soar together in courtship flight, the male higher than his lady. Sometimes both of them dangle their legs or he approaches her from above and touches her with his toes.
After the female zooms to the nest area the male goes into roller coaster mode, steeply flying up and down, ending with his own zoom to the female and then … perhaps they’ll mate.
Watch for soaring hawks today. The weather promises to be sunny.
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