Ecco sitting in a snow shower, 21 Dec 2024 (photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)
14 January 2025
The peregrine falcons at the Cathedral of Learning, Ecco and Carla, are already thinking about the upcoming nesting season. Two months from now Carla will be only days away from her first egg so the peregrines are ramping up courtship this month, snow or no.
There’s been snow on the nest since 2 January but that hasn’t stopped their visits. Yesterday the temperature nudged above freezing for most of the day and shrank the snow cover. At 4pm Ecco and Carla stopped by for a courtship bowing session.
Today we live among the descendants of the Terror Birds. Who were they? And who are they now?
Terror Birds (Phorusrhacids) were a genus of large, flightless, carnivorous birds that thrived in South America from 43 million to 100,000 years ago. Wikipedia describes them as “among the largest apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era.”
As you can see from this diagram the largest of them could easily have eaten a human and, because Homo sapiens evolved around 300,000 years ago, we were on Earth before they went extinct. We would have been in danger but we were in Africa, separated by an ocean from these terrifying ancestors of modern birds.
DNA studies in 2024 refined the phylogenetic supertree of birds placing Terror Birds as ancestors in the clade Australaves, the group that evolved in South America and Australia. Click on the image below to see a larger version of the diagram.
Because the diagram has hundreds of tiny details I’ve hand-drawn the Terror Bird section starting with their nearest living relative, the seriema. Notice who else is descended from the Terror Birds!
Let’s take a photographic journey through the tree.
First come the seriemas, who stand alone without other relatives. These South American birds have a lifestyle and appearance similar to the secretarybird of Africa, though they are not related. Here a red-legged seriema (Cariama cristata) kills a snake.
Pileated woodpecker skull from Pitt peregrine cache area, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
11 January 2025
Yesterday the Univ of Pittsburgh, the National Aviary, and I prepared for the upcoming peregrine nesting season by cleaning the nestbox and falconcams.
After examining the indoor side of the camera equipment Bob Mulvihill of the National Aviary and Gracie Jane Gollinger from Pitt IT braved 10°F weather on the ledge. Camera cleaning went well despite the cold weather and there was nothing to clean at the nestbox. However …
Bob Mulvihill and Gracie Jane Gollinger traverse the ledge, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)Bob Mulvihill cleans the snapshot camera, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Gracie Jane Gollinger)
When Bob stepped out on the landing that leads to the cameras, we were amazed that the area at his feet was strewn with partially eaten prey. I kept a list. Some were hard to identify.
Rock Pigeon (Feral) 1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 3 or 4
Black-billed Cuckoo 1
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1 (yellow feathers)
European Starling 1
Wood Thrush 2 or 3
Up to 5 cuckoos! The landing was clean when the chicks were banded on 21 May 2024 so the cache was left since then.
Bob stands among dehydrated peregrine prey: 2 yellow-billed cuckoos and a northern flicker (photo by Kate St. John)More peregrine prey on the landing, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
The most interesting find was the skull of a pileated woodpecker. I assumed that peregrines would never capture a bird with such a dangerous beak but I was wrong.
Pileated woodpecker skull from Pitt peregrine cache area, handheld for scale, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)Female pileated woodpecker skull from peregrine cache area, found 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Why so many prey items at this spot? Perhaps it was a favorite dining area where the adults dropped off food for last year’s youngsters.
Why so many cuckoos? The Pitt peregrines have always had a fondness for cuckoos, probably because their flight is floppy which makes them easy to catch. My only regret is that the peregrines caught so many cuckoos and wood thrushes.
Here’s the crew after our successful visit.
Left to right: Dante Bongiorni (Pitt Facilities Mgmt), Bob Mulvihill (National Aviary), Doug Cunzolo (Bob assist), Gracie Jane Gollinger (with hat, Pitt IT), Megan Hinds (National Aviary), Kate St. John (“The Peregrine Lady”) — photo by Gracie Jane Gollinger
Pair of peregrines on ice floes in the Allegheny River, 12 Jan 2018 (photo by Dave Brooke)
5 January 2025
Harsh winter returns to a large swath of the U.S. today through Tuesday, 5-7 January. From Kansas to Delaware, encompassing the Ohio River end to end, 14 states have Winter Storm Warnings including the southern tier of Pennsylvania.
After it snows low temperatures here will drop into the teens and single digits, 18°F to 9°F on Tuesday through Friday. This will be low enough to form ice on the Allegheny River as it did seven years ago when ice floes lured the Tarentum peregrines to land on the river. For a trip down memory lane see this vintage article.
Though my Last Bird of 2024 and my First Bird of 2025 were the same species — a flock of crows flying to/ from the Oakland roost — my Favorite Bird started off the new year right.
As the breeding season heats up in January and February, Ecco and Carla will become more visible even though it’s cold. Watch for them in the sky around the Cathedral of Learning this month and on camera beginning in February.
Meanwhile, click here to see the current snapshots from the nest.
This giant shark snout in the sky is a flock of thousands of common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) flying at dusk near Gretna, Scotland. As starlings gather to roost their tight flocks, called murmurations, wheel and turn in unison making beautiful patterns in the sky.
Under pressure from a predator, starlings intentionally fly closer together and shape-shift into giant blobs, making it impossible for the predator to lock on to a single bird as prey.
Starling murmuration at Eyemouth, UK
Can you see the peregrine at top right, above, and to the left below?
The only way for a peregrine to catch dinner is to break the blob. He rushes the flock, trying to separate a few starlings away from the group. The blob gets even tighter!
In just 17 days the winter solstice on 21 December will bring us the shortest day and longest night. Since peregrines cue on the amount of daylight to trigger their breeding season, they aren’t in the mood for courtship right now. But the Pitt peregrines stay at the Cathedral of Learning year round and occasionally visit the nest ledge anyway in the off season. Sometimes they call for their mate to join them in a bowing session.
In the snapshot above Ecco calls for Carla to join him last week. “Hey, Carla. Come here!” She didn’t show up then, but she stopped by on Sunday. However Ecco didn’t arrive. (Note: The sun’s low angle made white dirt-spots glow on the camera housing.)
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 high above 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!
Ecco pauses on the green perch at the end of the day, 2 Sep 2024, 7:05pm (photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera)
2 September 2024
Yesterday’s cooler weather was a welcome relief after the long heat wave. Carla and Ecco took advantage of the breeze to spend time in the sun at the Pitt peregrine nest.
Carla preened and the pair bowed to cement their bond as seen in this slideshow.
Carla is nearby while Ecco bows, 13 Jan 2025
