Merlin! When I found this exuberant photo by Eric Ellingson I had to find a merlin.
Two days ago, just before sunset, I went looking for them at Schenley Park golf course where they usually hang out in winter. I spent 40 minutes waiting and watching from the highest lookout and walking past all their favorite haunts.
Nothing.
So I went back to my car and there was a merlin perched high in the tree above it. I told the bird “Don’t go anywhere!” as I ran to get my scope.
Merlin at Schenley Park, 30 Dec 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Soon a second merlin came in with an evening snack. Slight tussle between them and the newcomer claimed the perch and ate its meal.
Merlin eating its evening meal at Schenley Park, 30 Dec 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Then it turned to watch the waning light and left in a streak, flying low over the golf course to its roost.
Crows flying to the roost in Oakland, Oct 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
29 December 2024
We tried but it was daunting. Last evening Carol Steytler, Claire Staples, Lisa Kaufman and I counted crows coming into the roost near the VA Hospital in Oakland for the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count. 15,000 crows. More or less. Probably more.
For an accurate count we needed all these conditions to be met simultaneously and all of them are under the crows’ control. Last night the crows beat us with blobs and darkness.
Know where the roost is.
Know the flight paths they use to reach the roost.
Know the size in the sky of a blob of 100 or 1,000 crows and be able to see the blobs.
Darkness: Here’s what I mean. You can’t see the crow until I alter the photo (from Wikimedia Commons). Nor could we.
Crow in the dark, perched on a branch
Crow in the dark -- photo adjusted so that you can see the crow
Details of the count:
The crows used the same roost site (sort of) that we found on Friday: the VA Hospital roof + nearby buildings. Miraculously they didn’t change the roost. However, the roof itself is too high to see so we used flight-path counting from the OC Lot parking deck. I’m sure some were hidden by buildings as they came in and weren’t counted.
Flight paths change day to day but Saturday’s was better than Friday’s from their pre-roost staging site in the west, backlit by the glow of sunset as shown at top. Very soon it was too dark to see black birds in a black sky. And the crows were frequently diverted by Stat MedEvac helicopters flying back and forth from UPMC Presbyterian.
Crow flock flight density — the blobs — changed all the time of course. We saw 100 crows in long strings, in very tight balls, and everything in between. Hard to count.
I’ve been counting crows for the CBC since 2018. It is always a challenge.
p.s. Lisa and I are thinking of practicing the blob-count next month while the crows are still in town. If you have a suggestion for counting you must first count with us this winter. (I’m not kidding!)
If you’re an experienced crow counter no need to join us; we welcome your tips.
Crows roosting near Thackeray Hall a year ago, in 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
26 December 2024
Two days from now, on 28 December, we’ll try to count all of Pittsburgh’s winter crows for the annual Christmas Bird Count. Unfortunately our efforts to find them have fallen quite short of the number we expect.
I believe there are 10,000 to 20,000 crows in the area but we’ve found only 2,000 to 5,000 in Oakland this week, even though I saw about 8,000 the week before. It is likely that the crows split the roost.
In prior years in Lawrence, Massachusetts their crow roost used to be in one place but this winter their crows have split into three locations. Lawrence Crow Patrol has found them all, as shown in this 14 December video. I wish we could say the same.
Have you seen crows crowded at the tops of trees at night? Have you found lots of crow poop in the morning — a sure sign that they were sleeping there the night before?
Let me know where the crows are sleeping by leaving a comment below.
Forget the Thanksgiving turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, cornbread, and cranberry sauce. Let’s cut to the chase and eat pie today!
photos from Wikimedia Commons, linked in the list of fruits. p.s. …
A pumpkin, from a botanist‘s perspective, is a fruit because it’s a product of the seed-bearing structure of flowering plants. Vegetables, on the other hand, are the edible portion of plants such as leaves, stems, roots, bulbs, flowers, and tubers. Because pumpkins are less sweet and more savory from a culinary perspective, we categorize them as a vegetable.
Duck Hollow on a sunny day in November 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
18 Nov 2024
In the Old Days 20 years ago, freezing weather would sweep across Canada in late October bringing migratory ducks to Pennsylvania in early November. But our climate has warmed and the ducks come later now. As of yesterday, they hadn’t made it to Duck Hollow yet.
This might be the week the ducks arrive. On Thursday the temperature will drop 20°F when a strong low pressure system brings widespread precipitation, strong wind gusts and possibly wet snow north of Pittsburgh. (NWS says of the forecast: “There is still a great deal of uncertainty right now.”)
By Sunday the weather may be good enough to check for ducks. So, weather permitting, join me at Duck Hollow on Sunday 24 November 2024, 8:30am to 10:30am for a bird and nature walk.
Meet at the Duck Hollow parking lot at the end of Old Browns Hill Road. Bundle up for the weather and wear comfortable walking shoes.
I hope we’ll see our one exception to “no ducks yet.” For more than a month a flock of 6-7 common mergansers has been hanging out at Duck Hollow. When they arrived in early October they were all in eclipse plumage but in the past two weeks at least one of them is molting in adult male breeding plumage.
Common mergansers, Duck Hollow, 9 Nov 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Looking forward to next Sunday. Fingers crossed about the weather.
As of this morning I’ve written 6,282 articles but not all of them are winners. On the blog’s anniversary I look for the most popular articles in the last 12 months.
One Day Wonders: These Top 5 posts caused the biggest single day surge in viewers. Click the links if you haven’t read them.
What Happens When a Dam is Removed? Locks and Dam #3 were about to be removed from the Monongahela River at Elizabeth. What would happen? (3 July; 7,265 readers)
Roost Rings on Radar Watch expanding rings on radar when thousands of purple martins leave their roosts all at once. (16 July; 3,446 readers)
Black Walnuts Amazingly popular because it includes photo and video of FLORY machines sweeping and vacuuming walnut orchards. (23 Nov last year; 3,121 readers)
This article was a joke about the resemblance of the Devils Tower to a large petrified tree stump. I am surprised that viewers are still drawn in year after year.
Daily readership hums along at 700-800 readers (YOU!) and soars to a new record of 7,200 viewers in unexpected ways.
Thank you, my readers, for your enthusiasm. I couldn’t have blogged every day for 17 years without you. And a big thank you to all the photographers who let me use your photos. I’ve made a lot of new friends.
Sunset times in Pittsburgh, late 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
2 November 2024
Spring Forward, Fall Back. Daylight Saving Time ends tonight as our clocks turn back an hour. Tomorrow the sun will set an hour earlier. A lot of us will be grumpy. Some will be depressed.
Most Americans agree that changing the clocks is bad.
Numerous polls have found that most Americans believe that a standard time should be fixed and permanent—as many as 75% favor no longer changing clocks twice per year. One of the most common observations among researchers of varying backgrounds is that the change itself causes most of the negative effects, more so than either standard time or daylight saving time. Researchers have observed numerous ill effects of the annual transitions, including reduced worker productivity, increased heart attacks and strokes, increased medical errors, and increased traffic incidents.
But there is an area in northeastern Arizona of self-governed indigenous tribal land where part of it uses Daylight Saving Time (DST) and the center does not. The DST area is the Navajo Nation which spans three states and has chosen to use DST. The donut hole is the Hopi Reservation that uses Standard Time. Here’s a closer look.
If you drive from Tusayan, AZ to Tuba City to Ganado to Window Rock in March through October, you will change time zones seven times between Standard Time and DST. (Did I count correctly?) People who have to make that trip will be relieved that everyone is on Standard Time tomorrow.
Changing your clocks: Everything connected to the Internet — mobile phones, etc. — will change automatically at 2:00am Sunday. The rest of the clocks are up to us.
On Halloween 2008 I came across a small bat roosting on a tree in Schenley Park, described in A Bat on Halloween. Every time I pass the tree, especially on Halloween, I look for a bat but the chances of finding one are slim to none.
Little Brown Bat clinging to an oak in Schenley Park on Halloween 2011 (photo by Kate St. John)
Little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) used to be one of the most common bats in North America but their population in the Northeast has declined 90% since 2006 because of white nose syndrome (WNS), a disease caused by a European fungus that was accidentally introduced by cave explorers near Albany, NY.
The fungus spreads rapidly. It was confirmed county by county in southwestern PA in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and now it spans the continent. Little brown bats were listed as Endangered by the IUCN in 2021.
There are far fewer bats in Pennsylvania this Halloween than there were 16 years ago. It is unlikely that I will ever see a little brown bat in daylight again.
Yesterday’s outing at Duck Hollow, 27 Oct 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
28 October 2024
Six of us went birding yesterday at Duck Hollow and we didn’t just stand around. Here we are on the move to look in the thickets.
Before the rest of us arrived, Claire Staples captured this image of sky, sun and fog on the Monongahela River at 7:55am.
Sky, sun, fog at Duck Hollow, 27 Oct 2024 (photo by Claire Staples)
As 8:36am the sky cleared a bit. Two contrails make dogleg turns to the north.
Sky and fog at Duck Hollow, 27 October 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Our Best Bird skulked in a thicket, of course, but kept making noise. He soon became the most photographed bird of the day: a winter wren in shadow and then in the open.
Winter wren in shadow, Duck Hollow, 27 Oct 224 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)Winter wren in the open periodically scolding, Duck Hollow, 27 Oct 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Duck Hollow’s northern mockingbird is still present and noisy.
Northern mockingbird, Duck Hollow, 27 October 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
We found a bumper crop of honeysuckle fruit along the Lower Nine Mile Run Trail.
Bush honeysuckle fruit, Lower Nine Mile Run Trail, 27 Oct 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Unfortunately …
Invasive honeysuckle berries aren’t strictly bad for birds. They’re an easy food source when birds are in a pinch, but they’re kind of like junk food: Compared to native berries, they have less fat and nutrients that birds need to fuel their long-distance flights.
Our “rare” bird of the day was a flock of 16 fish crows vocalizing as they flew. eBird didn’t believe we could find that many but eBird’s “rare” filter doesn’t know about, or cannot pointpoint, the fish crow phenomenon in Pittsburgh’s East End.
