Celebrity in Central Park, Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl, February 2023 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
28 July 2023
A selection of photos and videos this month around the web:
In February a Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco escaped from the Central Park Zoo and became a celebrity. He’s still hanging out in July.
A minute with Flaco the Eurasian Eagle-Owl in his favorite elm tree in a quiet meadow in Central Park. ? ?? ? pic.twitter.com/YJngOScMOk
— Manhattan Bird Alert (@BirdCentralPark) July 20, 2023
In Florida, swallow-tailed kites are preparing to migrate.
Our land stewardship team spotted this flock of Swallow-tailed Kites staging for #Migration in the northern part of the Sanctuary! They're getting ready to head to wintering grounds in South America. See their flight path here: https://t.co/gM31TOrnPXpic.twitter.com/lCCvBcQNf9
— Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (@CorkscrewSwamp) July 26, 2023
In Europe, migration has already begun across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Imagine spending a day standing on dunes in cold wet weather and seeing a river of a quarter million warblers fly by. This amazing phenomenon was the perfect storm of location, migration and bad weather.
In late May boreal forest warblers such as Cape May, bay-breasted and Tennessee have reached or surpassed Tadoussac, Quebec on the way to their breeding grounds further north. They aren’t nesting yet, so if the weather turns sour they head back south temporarily to wait it out.
The weather forecast for 24 May looked promising for this perfect storm as Ian Davies (@thebirdsguy) writes in the day’s eBird checklist: “There were southwest winds overnight (tailwinds good for migration), combined with a big cold front arriving right around dawn, bringing rain, strong northwest winds, and colder temperatures — the same setup that has resulted in flights of tens or hundreds of thousands of birds in past Mays.”
Hoping for a river of warblers, Ian and 11 others headed out to the Tadoussac dunes to count birds. In 11.25 hours they saw 263,771 birds in 96 species! Ian writes:
The first couple hours of daylight featured drizzle and strong winds, and not many birds until about 6:45 … then 500 birds/minute by 7:30. The Tadoussac river of warblers had begun. This flight continued at 300-500 birds/minute until about 9:20, at which point the rain dropped significantly, and the flood gates opened, as many as 1345 warblers/minute raging past in a torrent of flight calls and glowing songbirds. Birds were everywhere, below eye level, flying between people, pouring through the bushes, landing on the sand, and one Cape May Warbler even tried to land on my arm. A Red-eyed Vireo flew into someone. It was madness. … For one period of time, the rate of warblers was 80,000/hour.
Here’s just one of the many videos attached to the checklist. See the checklist for amazing photos, videos and counts.
Today we saw a QUARTER MILLION warblers fly past Tadoussac, Quebec. >85,000 Bay-breasted Warblers, and >50,000 each of Cape May and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Full details, photos, and video here: https://t.co/7E1IEM1ouhpic.twitter.com/clkqS1DYAy
— TheBirdsGuy (Ian Davies) (@thebirdsguy) May 25, 2023
The location was key to this phenomenon. Tadoussac is located on the northwest coast of the wide St. Lawrence River which funnels birds heading south. If you look at the videos you’ll see that the cameras are pointed toward the St.Lawrence River — east/southeast — and that all the birds are flying southwest.
These birds had made it further north but when bad weather arrived they changed direction to escape the storm. Flying on the northwest wind they reached the unsheltered coastal dunes at Tadoussac so they headed southwest to the forest.
What a privilege it must have been to witness a quarter million warblers in just one day.
I haven’t seen a bright red scarlet tanager yet this Spring but I think today’s the day.
Last night from the Rockies to the East Coast nearly a billion birds flew overhead in the continental U.S. According to BirdCast‘s map 886.4 million birds were in the air at 1:00am. The bright white and yellow portions of the map were especially intense.
American bittern at Panther Hollow Lake, Schenley Park, 28 April 2023 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Sunday 30 April 2023
Early Friday morning in pouring rain, Adrian Fenton was at Schenley Park looking for two soras reported the day before on eBird. Soras (Porzana carolina) are unusual in the City of Pittsburgh so it was worth the trip to look for them, but try as he might Adrian could not find any soras. Instead he found something much better.
At 7:29am I was writing Friday’s blog when I got Adrian’s Rare Bird Alert that there was an American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) among the reeds at Panther Hollow Lake. This bird is rare indeed! I dropped everything, put on my rain gear, and drove 5 minutes to Schenley Park.
Upon arrival I caught up with Adrian and he showed me where the bittern was. Except that I could not see it at first. Its camouflage is so good that it took me a while to latch onto the bird. Thank you, Adrian, for your patience!
More birders arrived, some looking from above on Panther Hollow Bridge. Charity Kheshgi viewed from eye level, as I had, and captured some great images of this cryptic bird.
American bittern at Panther Hollow Lake, Schenley Park, 28 April 2023 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)American bittern at Panther Hollow Lake, Schenley Park, 28 April 2023 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
Charity noticed that the bittern made a vertical wiggle with its neck and took a video. You can hear the sound of red-winged blackbirds and the ka-thunk of cars overhead on the Panther Hollow Bridge in the background. The wiggle is typical American bittern behavior though I’m unable to find an explanation for it.
By the end of Friday, 29 people had reported the bittern in eBird(*) but many more than that stopped by for a look. Some of them missed it on Friday, including Steve Northrop who found a sora that hadn’t been seen all day! See his checklist with sora photo.
So Friday came full circle with a search for a sora that found a bittern and a search for a bittern that found a sora.
On Saturday the bittern and sora were still present with an ever changing crowd of birders, binoculars, cameras and scopes. The crowd did not disturb the birds as the best viewing was from (up the hill) gravel paths 40 feet from the nearest water. The bittern was visible for most of the day Saturday, but the sora remained elusive. Around 6:30pm both birds put in an appearance and Steve Northop was there to witness it. Ta Dah!
Look for one thing, find another.
UPDATE on Friday 5 May 2023: Both the bittern and sora were still present on Friday 5 May in bright sunshine. By that time they’d stayed in Schenley Park more than 7 days and had become celebrities. My estimate is that 200 people came to see them, many of us multiple times.
Last week the temperature was so hot for so long in Pittsburgh — up to 16ºF above normal — that we put away our winter coats and wore summer clothes five days in a row. Norway maples burst into full leaf. Oak flowers bloomed. Insects flew around. The ticks came out. (Be careful!) And yet Spring’s migrating birds, the birds we expect under these conditions, did not show up. For instance, where are the catbirds?
As of this writing (6:00am on 20 April) eBird’s gray catbird sightings for April 2023 show that catbirds surround western PA but they aren’t here. Notice the catbird-free zone in western PA.
Zoom in on Allegheny County and you’ll find a single sighting on 8 April in North Park (not shown on map below) and one on 15 April at Riding Meadow Park. Otherwise there are no catbirds in Allegheny County but they’re in the counties around us: Westmoreland, Beaver and Butler. (That red pin drop in the east is in Westmoreland County.)
For some reason Allegheny County, PA is the last place birds want to visit. We have a few theories about it this year but this is an annual problem. Check out the theories and maps in this 2012 article.
Last November eBird enhanced their Status and Trends website with cool interactive maps of overall abundance, weekly abundance, population trends and range for nearly 700 species. The population trends are fascinating for two reasons: northward movement and curious exceptions.
Many eastern species are moving their breeding ranges northward. For some it’s starkly obvious that they’re declining in the Southeastern U.S. and increasing in the northern U.S. and southern Canada. Click HERE to see 12 good examples at Cottonwood Post.
Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata) trends are doubly fascinating. Jays are definitely moving north but with a curious exception in south Florida (why increasing there?). Check out their trends map. Blue is good, red is bad.
Most of Pennsylvania has no change in blue jay abundance but did you see the tiny red dot near Pittsburgh? Where is that decline? Drill into the map on the eBird website using these step-by-step screenshots to guide you.
As I zoomed in it became apparent that nothing has changed (i.e. white dots) for blue jays in our region until I found that red dot in Cranberry Township. I hovered my cursor over it and found that blue jays declined there 7.5% from 2007 to 2021. I wonder why…
Meanwhile wood thrushes (Hylocichla mustelina) are the curious exception. Though declining overall their trends map doesn’t show the predictable north-south pattern.
Wood thrush singing (photo by Steve Gosser)
Wood thrushes are declining in the Northeast but increasing in the Southern Appalachians and Alabama. A line of “No Change” runs from approximately Kingston, Ontario to Charlottesville, Virginia. Again, I wonder why…
Black-tailed godwits (Limosa limosa) are large shorebirds with a worldwide distribution but are listed as Near Threatened because their population declined 25% in only 15 years, 1990-2005. Two thirds of them breed in Europe. In fact almost half the worldwide population breeds in the Netherlands alone.
The European breeders spend the winter in the Mediterranean and Africa including at the Tagus Estuary at Lisbon, Portugal. During spring migration the Tagus hosts up to 40% of all the black-tailed godwits on Earth. Anything that permanently disturbs the Tagus could hurt the godwits.
The Montijo Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) counted black-tailed godwits at feeding and resting sites and calculated how many godwits would be disturbed by the noise of air traffic at 65dB (decibels) (orange outline below, 55dB is the yellow outline). The airport’s EIA said only 0.46–5.5% of the godwits would be disturbed.
Though the EIA used the counting techniques that we use in eBird — the number of birds at rest or in the air at specific points — it doesn’t tell the whole story.
The size of an impact/protection footprint depends on both the connectivity of impacted sites and the configuration of the entire network. Environmental Impact Assessments typically assume (a) a static population, ignoring connectivity: in such cases the footprint only covers the site(s) directly impacted (red circles). … A network with dense connections, such as (c), will typically result in a greater footprint. …Similarly, an impact on a central site (d) results in a larger footprint. (diagram and caption from “Conservation beyond Boundaries: using animal movement networks in Protected Area assessment” by J. Nightingale et al at ZSL Publications)
Fortunately many black-tailed godwits are banded so Nightingale could use 20 years of location data on 693 banded godwits, many seen twice on the same day in the Tagus area. He then drew connections from site to site to create the godwits’ airspace network. Nightingale also used a 55dB noise plot because that level of noise disrupts 50% of the birds.
Frequent disturbance by aircraft is known to have fitness costs for waders by increasing their energy expenditure, and may cause permanent avoidance of habitat if chronic with long-term consequences for site occupancy. The Tagus godwits’ frequent trans-boundary movements mean that 44.6% of the SPA’s godwit population would be exposed to noise disturbance from the proposed airport, and 68.3% of individuals overall. This compares with estimates of 0.46–5.5% in the airport’s EIA.
Coltsfoot blooming in Schenley Park, 1 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
8 April 2023
This week the temperature stayed above freezing (until this morning) and set a record 85ºF on Wednesday. On a walk in Schenley Park last Saturday 1 April I saw coltsfoot in bloom, Virginia bluebells in bud and flowering Norway maples.
Virginia bluebells about to bloom, Schenley Park, 1 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
By the end of the week the city’s Norway maples had bloomed enough that their profiles looked like green balls instead of stick trees. You’ll can see this on the slope of Mt Washington as viewed from Downtown or the Bluff.
Norway maples flowering, Schenley Park, 1 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
By mid week it was sunny and HOT.
On Wednesday 5 April I visited the Lake Trail at Raccoon Creek State Park to find newly arrived Louisiana waterthrushes (). Near one of the singing birds was a puddle of trilling and mating American toads. I recorded their sound and added a my (lousy) photo of mating toads + a Wikimedia photo of the Louisiana waterthrush when he sings in the recording. You can also hear the wind on the mic.
video by Kate StJohn Birdblog on YouTube
Also at Raccoon: spring beauty () and yellow corydalis (). I wish I could have stayed longer.
Spring beauty, Raccoon Creek State Park, Lake Trail, 5 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Yellow corydalis, Raccoon Creek State Park Lake Trail, 5 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Though the next two days will feel like summer in Pittsburgh with highs of 72ºF and 82ºF, the hummingbirds will not be back yet. Where are they now? When will they get here?
Our only hummingbird, the ruby-throated (Archilochus colubris), has a wide breeding range in eastern North America and a narrow wintering range in Central America and the southern tip of Florida.
Thanks to Hummingbird Central’s spring migration map, we can see that a few daring individuals flew north inside Florida in February but most migrants showed up in Central/North Florida and on the Gulf Coast in early March. By now, 4 April, the leading edge of hummingbird migrants has covered central and coastal North Carolina and has a foothold in southeastern Virginia.
Today’s hummingbirdcentral.com snapshot shows the gap between Pittsburgh and the leading edge of hummingbirds.
Will they reach Pittsburgh this month? Yes, one or two brave ones, but I predict the big push won’t get here until early May. My eBird sightings of ruby-throated hummingbirds in Frick/Schenley Parks consistently shows first arrivals on May 2-4 for the past five years.
13 May 2012
… gap of 6 years …
4 May 2018
4 May 2019
3 May 2020
3 May 2021
2 May 2022
(Go ahead, hummingbirds. Prove me wrong and arrive early!)
On Saturday before the storms I saw my First Of Year eastern phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) in Schenley Park while Kathy Saunders found a first Louisiana waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla) at Tom’s Run Nature Reserve. Two tail-waggers are back in town.
Few birds wag their tails side to side but we do call it “wagging” when they bob or pump their tails up and down. Eastern phoebes are subtle about it but the movement is almost constant and it draws our attention.
What makes phoebes wag their tails faster? Predators! Sibley describes a 2011 study of black phoebes:
Avellis concludes that tail pumping is a signal meant to send a message to the predator. It tells the predator that the phoebe has seen it, and therefore the phoebe is not worth pursuing.
Louisiana waterthrushes don’t just wag their tails. They continuously bob the entire back end of their bodies by moving their ankle joints. Birds’ ankles are the backward “knees,” the middle joint on their legs, hidden by this waterthrush while he dips his butt.
Louisiana waterthrush, April 2020 (photo by Steve Gosser)
Louisiana waterthrushes have a different reason for tail wagging than eastern phoebes and they hold their technique in common with another April migrant, spotted sandpipers.
In case you missed it, here’s why they “wag” their tails.
