It’s Spray Your Clothes Day (photo by Kate St. John)
11 April 2024
There’s a danger outdoors in Pennsylvania’s suburbs, parks and woods. The first step to protect yourself is to spray your clothes in early spring.
The Danger:
When a black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) sucks your blood it can transmit a parasite that causes Lyme disease, an illness that can ruin your life for a very long time. Black-legged ticks are especially dangerous in May and June when the tiny nymphs, only as big as a poppy seed, are questing for a blood meal.
If you don’t think you’ll see a tick in Pittsburgh’s suburbs, city parks and your own garden, think again. Deer don’t carry Lyme disease but they do carry ticks — a lot of ticks — and deer are everywhere.
Deer on Forbes Ave, Squirrel Hill, 7 Nov 2023 (photo courtesy Mardi Isler)
Are there deer in your backyard? There are also ticks.
The Prevention:
By spraying your clothes with permethrin you repel ticks and lower your likelihood of a tick bite. Spray your clothes outdoors in early April on a dry windless day so the spray doesn’t touch your skin. (Read the directions on the bottle.)
Here’s all you need to know about Spray Your Clothes Day activities and how to prevent Lyme disease.
Yellow-bellied sapsucker, Frick Park, 6 April 2024 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
8 April 2024
Surprise! Instead of an outing on the last Sunday of the month, let’s go birding next weekend. Join me at the Schenley Park Visitors Center for a bird & nature walk on Sunday 14 April, 8:30a – 10:30a.
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers migrate through Allegheny County in April so mid-month is the best time to find one in Schenley. Charity Kheshgi and I saw this one at Frick.
We’ll also see trees in bud, in bloom, and with tiny leaves. Ten years ago the redbuds had not opened yet. Will they be blooming next Sunday?
Redbuds in bud, Schenley Park, 18 April 2014 (photo by Kate St. John)
April showers won’t stop us. This event will be held rain or shine, but not in downpours or thunder. Check the Events page before you come in case of cancellation.
Dress for the weather and wear comfortable walking shoes. Don’t forget your binoculars.
Hope to see you there.
p.s. If the birding is good I’ll give an option to continue until 11:00am.
p.p.s. Don’t expect a big show of spring wildflowers like we used to see several years ago. Pittsburgh’s overabundant deer have eaten everything except the toxic flowers.
Meet at Duck Hollow parking lot at the end of Old Browns Hill Road. We’ll check the river for migrating waterfowl and walk the beginning of lower Nine Mile Run Trail watching for birds and the many signs of Spring.
Duck Hollow can be excellent or just ho-hum. In early November we saw purple finches and a red-shouldered hawk. Yesterday in a five minute stop at 8am I found a large flock of gadwall and six lesser scaup.
What will it be next Sunday? I’m counting on a kingfisher.
Dress for the weather and wear comfortable walking shoes. Bring binoculars, birding scopes and field guides if you have them.
Hope to see you there!
Sunday’s weather looks good so far but always check the Events Page before you come in case of cancellation.
Common milkweed seeds tumbling out of the pod, Oct 2020 (photo by Kate St. John)
22 February 2024
March is right around the corner and gardening season is almost here. Are you itching to get started? Do you want to try new seeds in your garden? Do you have seeds to share with others? Then you won’t want to miss the 12th Annual Seed Swap at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh on Saturday 2 March, 10am – 2pm.
Bring your untreated, non-GMO seeds to share or just pick up seeds donated by local gardeners, farmers and seed companies! Any guest bringing seeds will be eligible to enter a raffle of fun gifts from Phipps and Grow Pittsburgh.
Event Features:
Free seeds • A new batch of seeds will be released every hour, on the hour!
“Ask a master gardener” table
Workshops on seed starting, seed saving, and organic gardening
Creative activities for children and teens
Historic items on display and conversation with Rare Books Specialist
Raffle eligibility for attendees who bring seeds to swap
Show up any time but keep in mind that new seeds will be released every hour on the hour!
The Seed Swap is free. Registration is encouraged but not required. Click here to Register.
p.s. Here’s another helpful tip from Phipps’ website: “Interested in purchasing seed? We’ve compiled a list of seed vendors for your reference. Check out Phipps’ Smart Seed Shopping web resource for more information!“
White-breasted nuthatch at the feeder (photo by Cris Hamilton)
12 February 2024
Winter is back again so we need a good excuse to get outdoors. That excuse has arrived just in time. Join the annual Great Backyard Bird Count this coming weekend, Friday to Monday, 16-19 February.
Count birds at your feeders. Count birds at a park or hotspot. Count alone or with friends. You don’t even have to sign up.
Enter your sightings in eBird or use Merlin Bird ID. All the birds you record next weekend will automatically be included in the Great Backyard Bird Count.
Yesterday I was in an airplane flying home from Southern Africa when a North American marmot (Marmota monax) predicted how long winter will last. The groundhog said we’ll have an early spring.
Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring Friday in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania, the scene of the country’s largest and best known Groundhog Day celebration in the United States.
The annual event is a tongue-in-cheek ritual in which Phil’s handlers, members of a club with roots in the late 19th century, reveal whether the groundhog has seen his shadow.
Just after sunrise Friday, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club announced Phil did not see his shadow, which will usher in early springlike weather. The groundhog seeing his shadow presages six more weeks of winter, according to the group.
Sunshine is so rare during western Pennsylvania winters that we celebrate whenever we see shadows. However there is one day per year — 2 February — when we’re happy to have clouds.
Yesterday at sunrise in Punxsutawney the clouds were thickly overcast at 900 feet so there was no way Phil could see his shadow. An early spring! The crowd went wild.
Now that we’re over that hurdle, I’m looking forward to sunshine for the next five days.
Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning on Banding Day, 17 May 2013 (photo by Peter Bell)
5 January 2024
My Audubon calendar had a surprise for me this morning. Today is National Bird Day, a little-known celebration established in 2002 by BornFreeUSA in coordination with the Avian Welfare Coalition. Since both organizations focus primarily on the well being of captive animals and birds, the celebration has not gained much notice in the birding community. However it’s a great excuse to celebrate my own favorite bird.
The peregrine falcon pictured above is the only wild bird I’ve ever been able to recognize and learn as an individual. Dorothy arrived at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning in 2001 at age 2 and had her first successful nest in 2002, the year that National Bird Day was established.
As I got to know Dorothy I learned about her species and became addicted to peregrines. She also taught me a lot about herself and in retrospect the unique characteristics of her generation, the peregrines that repopulated eastern North America.
Dorothy died eight years ago and still is in my heart, especially as nesting season approaches. Here’s a look back at what a great bird she was. Never captive. Always wild.
Crows coming in to roost at Robinson Ext & Vera, 31 Dec 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
31 December 2023
Success! Last night, Saturday 30 December, our team counted 15,000 crows at their roost on Robinson Ext and Brackenridge Streets during the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count (CBC). It was a big challenge compared to last year when we could stand in one place and count 20,000 flying by in the distance. This year we had to chase them for two hours, texting each other with updates, until the crows finally picked a spot. Did they split the roost? In darkness and rain we think we were unable to see another 5,000 but we can’t count what we can’t see. So the official count is 15,000.
Carol Steytler, Sue Faust and I did a dry run on Friday night. That evening the western stream flew over the Allegheny River to stage at Cliff Street before moving on. My brief video shows how impossible it is to count them before they settle.
Crows staging on 29 Dec 2023 (video by Kate St. John)
That night we followed about half the flock to Wylie Avenue near Lawson, but where did the rest of them go? Fortunately it was just a dry run before Count Day.
On Saturday night Claire Staples joined us for the CBC and we split up to find the crows. Sue waited for them on Arcena Street but not a single crow came to the bluff above Bigelow. Carol found them staging near Wylie and Herron but when Claire and I caught up we could tell the crows were going to leave; there are no streetlights on that patch of woods.
By 5:30pm the crows had picked a roost and we gathered near Vera Street to watch them swirl overhead in the rain. We counted them in trees and on the Sports Dome but could not see how many were on nearby roofs and other places out of sight, so the official count is 15,000. Maybe next year we’ll count all of them.
Thank you to the intrepid team — Carol Steytler, Sue Faust and Claire Staples — who braved rain, cold, and darkness to count the crows. We were up for the challenge and we found almost all of them. And thanks to my readers for your tips and sightings. We’re done now until next year. 🙂
And we’ve learned a valuable lesson: If you want to count crows, don’t expect them to fly the same route or roost in the same place every night during the CBC.
This Saturday, 30 December, is Pittsburgh’s annual Christmas Bird Count when we confirm the number of crows that come to town for the winter. Usually the count is 20,000 so after they skunked me three years ago (I counted only 220!) it’s been my mission to find the roost and count them all.
Last week I was confident that, thanks to you, we had found the crows. Carol Steytler saw them roosting near Heinz Lofts on 16 December so I went down there on the 19th — before I left town for the holiday — and saw more than 10,000 streaming in from Troy Hill to Heinz Lofts. I thought the Crow Count was going to be easy.
Hah! The crows have something else in mind.
Crows roosting at Allegheny River near Heinz Lofts, 7 Feb 2021, 7:40pm (photo by Kate St. John)
On Sunday 24 December Carol told me the crows were GONE! They weren’t near Heinz Lofts and when she drove around yesterday from 5-7pm she couldn’t find them anywhere!
Are we going to let 20,000 crows avoid the Count? No!
If you see a steady stream of crows at dusk please tell me where you saw them and where they were going.
Crows streaming past near Troy Hill (photo by Jeff Cieslak)
If you see crows at sunset making a racket in the trees, please tell me where they were!
There are only 3 days left until Pittsburgh’s Christmas Bird Count and (yikes!) I’m still out of town. Please help me find the crows!
