Now that Thanksgiving is over turkeys can own the road again.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a wild turkey cross the road in the City of Pittsburgh. Six years ago they were very common in Pittsburgh’s East End but there are gone now, perhaps because the City’s huge deer population eats all their winter food.
If you want to see a lot of turkeys visit Pittsburgh’s northern suburbs. In February I saw 20 cross the road near North Park.
Fortunately none of them wanted to challenge cars!
The number of crows in the East End increased recently after they began roosting at Pitt again. On Saturday night I saw hundreds of crows in the trees at Carnegie Library and the Cathedral of Learning so on Monday afternoon I did a walk-about to count “crow trees” that showed evidence of roosting. (A big tree holds 250 crows.)
Crows gathering at dusk in Schenley Park, 21 Jan 2017 (photo by Mike Fialkovich)
My tree count was way too high so on my way home I paused at Fifth and Craig to count the huge flock passing overhead on their way to Pitt. 8,000 to 8,500 crows.
On Tuesday evening I could see crows staging in the trees above Morewood Ave so I counted again. 8,000 crows. … And this is just the East End flock.
The crows may be wondering why I’m counting(*), but crows can count too though not so high. A study of carrion crows (Corvus corone), published in Science last May, showed that this Eurasian equivalent of the American crow can count up to 4 out loud, similar to human toddlers.
Three carrion crows were trained to vocalize with one, two, three, or four caws depending on the number they saw in front of them. They were also taught to tap the screen when they were done counting.
The birds boasted a 100 percent accuracy rate at counting to one, a roughly 60 percent success rate at counting to two and about a 50 percent accuracy rate for three.
Crows particularly “disliked” the number four (40 percent accuracy), sometimes refusing to caw at all when prompted and pecking at the screen to end the trial immediately, [according to] study co-author Diana Liao, an animal physiologist at the University of Tübingen.
Additionally, the crows paused before cawing correctly, showing longer reaction times before producing higher totals of vocalizations. This delay is consistent with mental planning.
The test reminds me of a story Chuck Tague told me many years ago. He and his wife Joan visited a bird blind to see an elusive bird that would not come out if a crow was watching. Unfortunately whenever he and Joan went to the blind a crow would follow them and wait for them to leave.
They decided to fool the crow. Both of them went into the blind but only Chuck came out. Surely the crow would leave and Joan would see that elusive bird. Nope. The crow counted two people going in and only one came out. They changed it up and Joan came out but it made no difference. The crow could certainly count two people.
(*) p.s. I’m counting crows to get in practice for the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count on 28 December 2024, the Saturday after Christmas. Last year we counted 15,000!
Budgerigars or budgies, Melopsittacus undulatus) are native to Australia but are so popular as pets that they have been bred in captivity since the 1800s, resulting in colors such as blue not found in the wild.
Part of the budgies’ charm is that they love to mimic human speech. They do it because …
In the wild, flocks of parrots develop distinct local dialects. Research indicates they use these to distinguish familiar members of their flock from unfamiliar birds of other flocks. Birds respond more to vocalizations that are familiar to their own, and they ostracize individuals that vocalize in a different way. Birds raised in captivity might mimic humans, particularly their owners, to gain acceptance as a member of the family (flock). If they hear a word or phrase repeatedly, they might interpret that as a vocalization distinct to their flock. They then attempt to make the vocalization themselves to maintain their membership of that flock. If the parrot gets no response when it squawks a natural parrot vocalization, but receives attention or food when it mimics human speech, it has an extra incentive to repeat human words and phrases.
p.s. Paul Hess writes: I wanted to mention my experience with captive budgies in west-coastal Florida as far back as annual visits with my grandmother during the late 1950s — e.g., One of her cage birds learned my name and greeted me perfectly in subsequent visits a year apart. Bill Pranty, an old friend since his teen years in Pittsburgh and now a prominent ornithologist in FL, urged me to write about this budgie’s extraordinary long-term memory. I never got around to it.
The larger a predator’s wingspan or body length, the fewer “dee” sounds the chickadees used in their alarm call, the study found. The opposite was true for smaller predators –– the songbirds would use more “dee” sounds if they encountered a smaller bird, which could be greater threats to chickadees since they are more agile.
So the chickadees slow down their warning dee’s … like this.
On the other hand, northern saw-whet owls are small and agile, just the right size to capture chickadees. You can see how small they are as I held one at an owl banding in 2016.
TWO northern saw-whet owls, 26 Oct 2016 (photo by Donna Foyle)
By the way, the chickadee warnings in this audio were recorded at State Game Land No 203 in Wexford, PA while the birds were alarming at an Eastern Screech-owl. Screech-owls are another dangerous predator of chickadees.
When you hear chickadees, listen for their warning calls to tell you how big the predator is.
If I could find some frantic chickadees, I might find an owl.
Crows at the roost, 30 December 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
4 November 2024
Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock is building as more birds from the north join the thousands already here. By the end of December at the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count, there will be as many as 20,000 crows on the move at sunset.
This month while the flock is growing, the roosts that were adequate in October are too small, so they move the entire roost or split into several locations. The moving or splitting happens every week, if not more often.
On Halloween they chose a favorite spot in the Hill District overlooking the Allegheny River, but those coming from the southeast had to change course to get to it. Thousands flew over my apartment building just after sunset on 1 November. On 2 November they found a shortcut and took a different route.
Winter crow flock flies to the roost, Pittsburgh, 1 Nov 2024 (video by Kate St. John)
Tonight sunset is during rush hour at 5:12pm and for the first time this fall many people will be outdoors while the crows are on the move. Those who hadn’t noticed the flock before will think the crows suddenly showed up. Nope. Crows have been traveling at sunset all their lives. It’s the people who suddenly showed up.
p.s. Thank you to Sue Faust & Betty Rowland for alerting me to the crows’ whereabouts. It’s always a challenge to find the roost, especially in late December.
A long term study of white storks (Ciconia ciconia) in Germany and Austria discovered they improve their migration routes year after year as they gain experience. Older is wiser when it comes to migration.
Back in 2013 researchers fitted more than 250 juvenile white storks with tracking devices that followed each bird as it traveled to its wintering and breeding grounds. As the individuals aged they learned shortcuts, used more direct routes, and moved faster in Spring even though it used more energy.
White storks mate for life and set up housekeeping at age 3 or 4. On the graph we can see that older birds — mated adults — were in a rush to get home but young birds with no nest to reclaim spent time dawdling and exploring.
Last spring during the nesting season I was so distracted by peregrines that I neglected to check on a merlins’ nest reported in Highland Park. By the time I got over there the young had fledged, the merlins were gone, and a small group of American crows were inspecting the area and commenting on what they found.
Crows are intensely interested in merlin nests because those nests may have been stolen from crows.
Merlins (Falco columbarius) never build a nest. Instead they search for crow or hawk nests, ideally in conifers, and take them over. If the target nest is unoccupied no problem but merlins are feisty and will try for an active crows’ nest by driving off the incubating female crow. If harassing her doesn’t work, they shout at her all day until another predator shows up and forces her to leave.
This often works because merlins are loud and fearless. They’ll drive away anything that irritates them including this raven (a merlin predator not a competitor).
Merlin attack! Raven flips upside down, Renews, NL, 10 July 2010 (photo by Trina Anderson)
However, in southwestern Pennsylvania there are now two species of crows — American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and fish crows (Corvus ossifragus) — and it makes a difference to the merlins’ success.
Not so with fish crows. Merlins and fish crows are new to each other so they haven’t worked out their differences and continue harassing for a much longer period. Few or none on either side have a successful nest. In the study of 25 fish crow nests in upstate New York, 40% failed due to merlin interference. The study tracked 31 merlin nests and found 66% of those made in fish crow nests did not fledge young.
Autumn and winter are good times for seeing merlins and fish crows in Pittsburgh. It would be interesting to find them interacting in spring and watch what happens.
p.s. Thank you to Don Nixon of PA Merlins for alerting me to this fascinating topic. The paper(*) is by Connor O’H. Loomis and Anne B. Clark (Binghamton University), John Confer (Ithaca College), Kevin J. McGowan (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) but it is behind a pay wall. The fish crow and merlin nesting studies continue beyond 2019 in Ithaca, NY at Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
This week the New York Times described A Feathered Murder Mystery at 10,000 Feet which I cannot resist retelling because peregrines are involved. My story will be in photos none of which are from the real episode. See actual photos and the full story at the link above.
In early 2023 scientists from the University of Amsterdam attached satellite trackers to eight black-bellied plovers that were wintering in the Netherlands (a.k.a. grey plovers, Pluvialis squatarola). The goal was to find out where they breed in the Arctic. Here’s what one looks like in spring.
In late May 2023 the birds were migrating northwest over Sweden at almost 10,000 feet when one of them abruptly changed direction 180 degrees, descended to near sea level and completely stopped moving. When a tracking device sends that kind of news, the bird is dead.
650 feet away from the abandoned tracker was a peregrine nest. (Chances are very good that the scientists did NOT visit during nesting season but the whitewash left on a cliff is a clear indication of who was there in late May.)
The plover died during peregrine breeding season when there were probably young peregrines in the nest so the father bird went hunting up where the food was flying.
It’s not a surprise that plovers fly so high — some species fly even higher on migration — but it is a surprise that peregrines hunt at 10,000 feet. The plover’s tracker provided the first documented evidence.
Just when we think we know everything about peregrines, they surprise us again.
p.s. Please keep in mind that none of these photos are from the actual event!
Though the current distribution of spotted lanternflies overlaps part of the blue headed vireo’s breeding range, an individual vireo might never have seen a lanternfly before he reached Central Park. This particular bird might be taking his first taste.
Spotted lanternflies at Herrs Island, Pittsburgh, 3 August 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
How can a blue-headed vireo be naive about spotted lanternflies? It’s easy if he hatched this year. Let’s compare three maps.
1. This map of spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) distribution shows there are no lanternflies in the Adirondacks, Vermont, New Hampshire. Nor are they in Canada yet.
2. Blue-headed vireos (Vireo solitarius) breeding north of NYC nest in Canada, New England and New York state. The vast majority of hatch year blue-headed vireos were born north or outside of the lanternfly’s distribution.
3. Were these naive birds in Central Park this week? This eBird slideshow of blue-headed vireo abundance for the weeks of 18 and 25 October shows that most vireos have left Canada and are moving rapidly out of New York and New England. The bird in Central Park on 22 October was probably born outside the spotted lanternfly zone.
Blue-headed vireo, Weekly abundance, Week of 25 October (from eBird)
Blue-headed vireo, Weekly abundance, Week of 25 October (from eBird)
By now blue-headed vireos have already left southwestern PA and this week they’ll depart from eastern Pennsylvania. Their help with spotted lanternflies will have to wait until next year.
Immature yellow-bellied sapsucker near spotted lanternflies, Frick Park, 6 Oct 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
8 October 2024
Bird migration was intense over Pittsburgh on Friday night, 4 October, when more than 20,000 songbirds flew south overhead. We saw the results on Saturday morning in Frick Park where a new cohort of species had arrived with good news: Some of them were eating spotted lanternflies!
The new species included ruby-crowned kinglets, white-throated sparrows, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and yellow-rumped (myrtle) warblers. The mix was quite a change from September’s warblers.
Most of the new arrivals were feeding on tiny insects but the juvenile sapsucker, pictured above, was attracted to sweet lanternfly honeydew on ailanthus trees. He was too young to have ever seen a spotted lanternfly but he was curious. “Are these edible?”
Immature yellow-bellied sapsucker looking at spotted lanternflies, Frick Park, 6 Oct 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Yes.
Perhaps the sapsucker got the idea from a northern cardinal that ate a lanternfly further down the trail. (I don’t have a photo of that incident; this one is from iNaturalist, New York.)
