11 March 2010
Flowers!
I found these crocuses blooming at Schenley Plaza and saw my first turkey vulture in Oakland this afternoon. Spring is on its way!
Update, Friday morning, 5:15am: Robins are singing in the dark outside my house. This is new; they must have arrived overnight.
Update, Saturday morning, 9am: Grackles in my back yard, the first of 2010.
(photo by Kate St. John)
7 February 2010
This morning dawned clear and cold at 5oF. We’re back in the deep freeze, but this time with an official 21.1 inches of snow. This is the fourth largest snowfall since Pittsburgh began keeping records in 1884 and it sets the record for February.
After the snow stopped falling yesterday, the sun came out and the air felt almost balmy. Heavy snow began to fall off the trees, people came outdoors to dig out their cars and I took a walk to Schenley Park to see what was going on.
The snow was up to my knees. I had to walk in the road, but so did everyone else and there were very few cars. If I hadn’t been able to walk where it was plowed I’d never have made the 3.7 miles round trip.
When I got to Phipps Conservatory I found the sign show at top. Yes, there are tropics inside their building but it was closed. All the action was on Flagstaff Hill, mobbed by thrill-seekers with snowboards, saucer-sleds and makeshift toboggans.
As promised I took a lot of pictures on my low quality cell phone, shown in the slideshow below. (Click on any image to see the slideshow in its own lightbox.)
The tropics are definitely wishful thinking today.
p.s. Here’s a map of the total snowfall. Notice how Pittsburgh, Westmoreland County and the mountains got the most snow!
(photos by Kate St. John)
In his Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold called November “the month for the axe. …In winter, when we are harvesting diseased or dead trees for our fuel wood, the ring of the axe is dinner gong for the chickadee tribe… Every slab of dead bark is, to them, a treasury of eggs, larvae, and cocoons.”
Dead trees are treasure troves for woodpeckers too, and in the bird world they wield the ax. Though the leaves have fallen the weather is still warm, the larvae are still active inside the bark, and the woodpeckers can hear them.
This weekend I found a pileated woodpecker excavating a dead tree in Schenley Park. Among birds, the pileated’s beak is about as close as you can come to an ax. The bird itself is the size of a crow with a beak 1.5 to 2 inches long. That may sound small but his beak hits the wood at 13-15 miles per hour so the woodpecker experiences 10G’s of force at each blow.
It would kill you or me to slam our heads against trees but the woodpecker’s head is designed for the work. His neck absorbs the impact and his brain is cushioned by a network of flexible cartilage and spongy air-filled bone. His tongue is very long for probing the openings he creates — so long that it retracts inside to the back of his skull. It’s the right equipment for chopping trees.
Keep a lookout this month for pileated woodpeckers. November is the month for the ax.
(photo by Dick Martin)
Remember how on November 7th I wrote that non-native trees are often the only ones with leaves at this time of year?
Here’s a Norway maple, seen yesterday in Schenley Park. It was the only tree with leaves on this Blue Sky day.
(photo by Kate St. John)
This year is different.
We usually don’t see huge flocks of grackles in Pittsburgh until late October but this year they showed up in the third week of September. I first noticed them in large groups in Schenley Park, gathering in the treetops at dusk. Since then they’re most noticable on rainy days when they graze on neighborhood lawns and fly low over the road.
Common grackles are diurnal migrants who tend to move in mixed flocks with blackbirds and starlings. Within the flocks you can pick out the grackles because they have long tails and make a low “chuck” sound as they fly. Though I’ve looked for other birds among them, the recent flocks are nearly 100% grackles. When they gather at dusk their “rusty gate” voices are very loud. Then they take off in unison – an impressive sight.
I wonder why the grackles are early this year. Is there less food up north than usual? Is winter coming early? Do they know something we don’t know? Probably.
(photo of a flock of brown-headed cowbirds by Chuck Tague. Are there any grackles mixed in? Look at their tails.)
Today the fences are up, Schenley Park is barricaded and the black helicopters are circling overhead. Traveling around town is a challenge.
Welcome to the first morning of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh. The heads of state and advisors of the 20 most economically powerful countries will be here for two days. Plus 3,000 journalists. Plus who-knows-how-many protesters.
Since the 1999 riots in Seattle, these meetings are always heavily guarded against violent protest. Most of Downtown Pittsburgh is closed to vehicles. Pedestrians near the Convention Center must pass through checkpoints. Schenley Park is closed because of tonight’s reception and dinner at Phipps Conservatory. The National Guard is at the ready (hence, the black helicopters) and police are stationed everywhere. Pittsburgh “welcomes” the world.
After the traffic barriers were announced in August, the schools and a lot of businesses gave up and decided to close for these two days, but WQED’s OnQ is producing shows about the G-20 Summit so I must be at work.
Now that I live in a city under seige, I have no interest in these goings on, nor do I want to be near them. Just for today I wish I was a bird. I could avoid the traffic, the barriers, the annoyances. If I was a bird I could fly over all this trouble just as Dorothy flies over Oakland.
But I’m not. I’m just a pedestrian who will see less of Pittsburgh than you’ll see on the news. Sadly the news is looking for – dare I say hoping for – conflict and that’s not the Pittsburgh I live in.
The headline in last Sunday’s Post-Gazette was “Why Pittsburgh?” My question exactly!
(photo by Jack Rowley of peregrine falcon, Dorothy, flying over Oakland at the University of Pittsburgh, May 25, 2004)
…p.s. Click on the photo above to see how Carnegie Museum is protecting their statues against G-20 vandals. Plus a few sites that describe/show other scenes: A video of downtown, a description of Schenley’s barriers.
As promised I participated in International Rock Flipping Day (IRFD) today.
Yesterday I tried to get a head start by flipping a few rocks in a stream in Schenley Park but there was nothing under them except smaller rocks. Today in Butler County I turned over a big rock in Portersville. Nothing but dead leaves underneath.
Back home at Schenley Park I hunted for a likely candidate and finally found a winner, the rock pictured above. There was an earthworm and a millipede underneath but you can’t see them in my lousy cell phone photo. They were trying to burrow underground but it’s drought-y here so the ground is too dry for them.
The biggest thing I learned is that southwestern Pennsylvania is just not a rocky place. I had no trouble finding rocks everywhere when I was in Maine early this month but around here the only real rocks we have are those used in landscaping. I think we have to import them.
No wonder I came up with nothing. Sort of.
For more IRFD results see Wanderin’ Weeta’s blog.
p.s. IRFD rules include putting the rock back the way you found it without harming what’s underneath – which I did, though not pictured here.
(photos from my cell phone)
p.p.s. Look how many bloggers participated in International Rock Flipping Day!
In late summer I have two favorite flowers. Here’s one of them: Sweet Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum). As you can see, it’s a favorite with insects too.
The plant is huge – 10 feet tall – and the flowers, though individually small, are arranged in a large dome-shaped cluster 6 to 9 inches across. Its size is amazing when you consider it grew to this height since April. Click on the photo to see what the entire plant looks like.
Joe-Pye weed used to be considered a weed and was only found growing in the wild near creeks and damp roadside ditches. But now gardeners use native plants so you don’t have to leave town to see it. Stop in Schenley Park and look at the wildflowers across the street from the Westinghouse fountain. The Joe-Pye weed is spectacular.
(photo by Chuck Tague)
The major studios have come out with their summer action flicks. Now I have one too.
Nine weeks ago I spent my lunch hours at Schenley Plaza waiting for the peregrines to fledge at the University of Pittsburgh. On June 2nd WQED’s Web intern, Christa Majoras, came to Fledge Watch with a video camera and recorded the event. Then she edited it into a short video which I’ve saved as a treat for you today. (OK, I’ll admit it. I didn’t have time until now to learn the Flash plug-in.)
Click the Play button above to see the results. If you don’t know what I look like, now you will. I’m the one with the hat and sunglasses who’s talking all the time.
Special thanks to Linda, Libby and Betsy for being part of this video.
p.s. for after the movie: The Jersey shore is only part of the answer. They also go here.
p.p.s. See the new Peregrine FAQ on fledge watching.
note\\flashvideo file=”http://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/video/bird_7-16-09.flv” image=”http://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/kate_FledgeVideo.jpg” /
Moth Mullein, Verbascum blattaria, is blooming now in waste places and along roadsides in western Pennsylvania.
Though non-native this biennial doesn’t tend to invade natural areas because it prefers disturbed soil. Its five-petaled white or pale yellow flowers grow on a tall showy spike 2-4 feet high that blooms from bottom to top. When blooming it’s hard to miss.
This month I’ve seen moth mullein in my neighborhood, in Schenley Park and along roadsides. A big crop must have seeded two years ago.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
