During fall migration bird numbers are at their highest as the adult population is joined by their recent young. I look forward to the variety of fall warblers and large flocks of chimney swifts, but this year — again — there are fewer migrants than I remember. My mood is dampened by solastalgia for birds.
Solastalgia is a new concept developed to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress. As opposed to nostalgia–the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home–solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment.
Fourteen years ago I noticed a decline in common nighthawks (Chordeiles minor) that used to migrate in flocks of 10-20 over my old neighborhood during the 20th century. In 2008 their numbers dropped precipitously. Nowadays I am lucky to see a single bird.
Common nighthawk (photo by Chuck Tague obtained in 2015)
Chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) were my consolation but now they prompt solastalgia. Two years ago I counted more than 2,200 swifts roosting at Cathedral Mansions chimney during fall migration, but just last year their numbers declined sharply. My highest count in 2021 was only 100. Fifty is my highest count so far this year.
Chimney swift trio (photo by Jeff Davis obtained in 2013)
Despite the sense of loss it is still good to be outdoors, it is still lovely to look at birds, and it is healthy to let go of the past and gracefully embrace the present.
For more information on bird decline and some good vibes for the future see 3billionbirds.org.
Songbirds (Oscines) are the majority of the world’s birds as you can see circled on the supertree below. In August 2016 we found out that all of them originated in Australia. Here’s how it happened.
The world was a very different place during the Oligocene 35 million years ago. For one thing there was a big gap between Australia and Asia and songbirds’ ancestors could not leave Australia.
Then about 25 million years ago a land bridge formed when tectonic activity forced a patch of islands called Wallacea to the ocean’s surface. Wallacea, now part of Indonesia, bridged the gap and was the first step on the songbirds’ journey. (Ancient Wallacea in yellow below.)
Others, like waxwings (Bombycillidae), have few DNA traces to show the path they took. Waxwings’ living DNA relatives are found only in Wallacea, North America and northern Eurasia.
Cedar waxwing (photo by Cris Hamilton)
Learn more about songbirds’ amazing journey in these articles:
We know that air pollution hurts humans. It is also bad for agriculture in an unexpected way. A study published in early 2022 by the University of Reading revealed that air pollution confuses bees and butterflies and reduces their pollination efforts.
Scientists from the University of Reading, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and the University of Birmingham found that there were up to 70% fewer pollinators, up to 90% fewer flower visits and an overall pollination reduction of up to 31% in test plants when common ground-level air pollutants, including diesel exhaust pollutants and ozone, were present.
Have you ever seen the Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming?
I had no idea it existed until Allison Cusick displayed a photo and jokingly described it as the world’s largest petrified tree during his presentation on Botanical Superlatives. I’ve never been there but I was hooked.
The origins of this gigantic “tree stump” are as amazing as its appearance.
Though no one knows for sure, most geologists agree that it’s a magma intrusion — not a volcano — of rare igneous rock called phonolite porphyry that formed 50 million years ago. At first it was buried underground but erosion has exposed it to stand 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River.
The Devils Tower is important to Native American culture and was established as the first National Monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It is one of the few monuments that allows rock climbing.
Closeup #1 of fossil in Schenley Park (photo by Kate St. John)
10 August 2022
Sometime this summer the Department of Public Works placed a large sandstone rock at the base of the stairs behind the Schenley Park Visitors’ Center. The prominent fossil facing the stairs tells a story about life in Pittsburgh 300 to 330 million years ago.
Fossil rock at the base of the WPA stairs, Schenley Park, 6 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
The sand became sandstone and in the early 21st century the rock separated from its fellows thereby exposing the fossil. This rock many have fallen at the Bridle Trail rockslide.
Locations of two closeup photos of the fossil in Schenley Park (photo by Kate St. John)Closeup #2 of fossil in Schenley Park (photo by Kate St. John)
I have never seen Lepidodendron’s closest living relative, Lycopodium, in Schenley Park …
Lycopodium (ground pine or club moss), Laurel Ridge State park, 30 May 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
… but I’ll look for it now that I’ve seen its fossil ancestor.
Thank you to Public Works for placing this fossil rock on display in Schenley Park.
p.s. If this Lepidodendron had fallen in a swamp instead of on a sandy beach, it would have become coal. Read about similar fossils at Ferncliff Peninsula in Ohiopyle State Park in this vintage article: Fossils at Ferncliff
(photos by Kate St. John, illustrations from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
Birds move around on their own but some of our most common species came from a different continent or a different habitat and were introduced here by humans. Now you can see both native and exotic ranges in eBird after they made changes this month to the species maps.
House sparrows and pigeons, both introduced from Europe, are a case in point. In the eBird maps below native range is purple, exotic range is orange.
We tend to think that all exotic species were introduced from Eurasia to the Americas. Canada geese made the reverse journey. Europeans actually wanted them. Are they regretting that decision?
Captured house finches were illegally transported from California to New York City in the 1940s to be sold as “Hollywood finches” in the pet trade. Just before the law caught up to them, the vendors released the birds on Long Island. The “exotic” house finch population has now spread across the continent. eBird shows it on the map below. Click here and scroll down to see how they spread through the decades.
The northern bobwhite does not do well in urban and suburban habitats but as a game bird it is raised in captivity and released for hunting in gamelands, agricultural fields and open woods. Have you seen a bobwhite in your backyard? It is an escapee within its “exotic” range.
Mid to late summer is a good time to be a bird in Pennsylvania. Fruit is ripe, seeds are plentiful, insect food is everywhere and for raptors there are plenty of naive young animals to capture. With so much natural food available and with songbirds’ preference for insects in summer, birds are not dependent on backyard feeders in July.
You can safely bring in your bird feeders now. In fact, if you cannot clean your feeders every week, they are unsafe for birds. Highly pathogenic avian flu has ebbed this summer but there is apprehension that it will return during fall migration. And it’s not the only disease that kills birds.
Yesterday I encountered three dead or dying birds in my neighborhood within half a mile of each other: a house finch that fell over unless it propped itself on open wings, a dead fledgling robin standing in the street (below), and a fluffed house sparrow that could not walk.
Frozen in place: dead American robin fledgling standing in the street, 12 July 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
I have no idea what was killing them. It could have been a different reason for each species. I do know that if it was contagious, finches and sparrows would have spread it at bird feeders.
Solar-powered GPS tracking devices for birds can be so accurate that researchers can tell the bird’s location to within 100 meters. The devices keep transmitting even if they fall off, so when a beachcomber collected a discarded tag on a beach in Orkney it tracked him too.
Last winter researchers at University of Exeter attached GPS tracking devices to 32 Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) in County Dublin, Ireland to find out how the birds use the public lands. This spring one of the oystercatchers migrated to its breeding grounds on Sanday, Orkney Islands, Scotland. Its tag fell off on the beach on 7 April. The tracker kept transmitting.
At the end of May the tracker started moving again. It visited a campsite and a pizza shop, flew from Edinburgh to Heathrow and came to rest on a residential street in Ealing, London. Stuart Bearhop, Professor of Animal Ecology at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology & Conservation, tweeted this plea for the tag’s return.
Twitter can you please help? We have a tag that has fallen off one of @mindtheTrapp‘s oystercatchers. Someone visiting Orkney in the last few days seems to have found it and taken it to London. Can you please RT and/or get in touch if you think you can help us get it back! pic.twitter.com/a2IoXzI02h
“The tags are worth around £1,000 each, so pretty pricey!” said PhD student Steph Trapp who is carrying out the research. “Any we can get back will be really valuable for increasing our sample size and the amount of data we can collect.”
News spread quickly. A BBC Radio Five Live listener volunteered to leaflet the Ealing neighborhood. The beachcomber learned what he had collected and was happy to return the tag. Read how the Mystery of Orkney bird tag tracked to London is solved.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
Avian influenza, also called bird flu, is in the news lately because a highly contagious strain has made it to North America from Eurasia. Though not dangerous to humans, this year’s strain is easily caught by some bird species, most notably chickens. Here’s what it is and what we can do to protect birds.
What is this virus?As USDA explains, “Avian influenza is caused by an influenza type A virus which can infect poultry (such as chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, domestic ducks, geese, and guinea fowl) and wild birds (especially waterfowl).” Various strains are always in the wild but the low pathogenicity versions do not cause illness in wild birds or chickens. Every few years, however, a highly pathogenic (HPAI) strain surfaces that is extremely infectious, fatal to chickens, and rapidly spreads in domestic poultry.
This year’s HPAI strain has already devastated many poultry farms.
Which birds have died? USDA is tracking the virus and reports that millions of commercially raised chickens and turkeys have already died this year. As of 7 April 2022 the total death count was more than 24.2 million, the vast majority of which — more than 16 million — were Commercial Layer Chickens. That’s why the price of eggs has gone up. (See USDA commercial and backyard flock statistics here.)
If you are a poultry farmer, have backyard chickens, or have captive birds in a zoo or rehab facility you’ll want to heed USDA’s advice to protect your birds. Accordingly the Pittsburgh Zoo, the National Aviary, and HARP’s wild bird rehab facility in Verona are taking precautions. (See this Post-Gazette article.)
Should we worry about wild birds? Not so much. Wild birds maintain their own social distancing whereas domestic poultry live in crowded conditions on factory farms.
In addition, avian flu is primarily caught by ducks, geese, swans, chickens, wild turkeys, pheasants and quail. Some raptors catch it, though in low numbers. Songbirds are at low risk.
As of 7 April 2022, USDA testing of dead wild birds has found 637 cases in the U.S. 88% were water-related birds, notably mallards and snow geese. 11% were raptors. The highest raptor death toll was among black vultures who roost communally. (See USDA wild bird statistics here.)
Notice the order of magnitude here: 24.2 million poultry deaths versus 637 wild bird deaths.
Interestingly, the species most susceptible to avian influenza are closely related and stand alone in the the phylogenomic supertree below (pale green branch at bottom right = ducks, geese, chickens, pheasants) while those least susceptible are least related to ducks and chickens.
And finally, here are two quotes from the New York Times:
Nearly all the nine billion chickens raised and slaughtered in the United States each year can trace their lineage to a handful of breeds that have been manipulated to favor fast growth and plump breasts. The birds are also exceptionally vulnerable to outbreaks of disease. “They all have the same immune system, or lack of an immune system, so once a virus gets inside a barn, it’s going to spread like wildfire,” said Dr. Hansen, the public health veterinarian.
Andrew deCoriolis, the executive director of Farm Forward says: “Instead of asking how factory farms can prevent infections that originate in the environment, which is how they frame it now, we should be asking how they can prevent infections that originate on factory farms,” he said. “If we keep raising more and more animals in these conditions, we should expect the exact outcome we’re getting because that’s how the system is set up.”
And finally there is the experiential illusion of a “gravity hill.”
A gravity hill, often referred to as a mystery hill, is a spot in the road where the layout of surrounding land and landmarks creates an optical illusion, making a slight downhill slope appear to be an uphill slope.
Skeptics have put the hills to the test, using magnetic detectors and levels. All indications suggest the hills are just illusions.
