7 December 2024
This week the city received a light dusting of snow but the ground was not as beautiful as the sky. Two examples: Fog and sun at Duck Hollow before Thanksgiving, and a very red sunrise on 4 December.
What is this? An arrangement of black carbon.
These were the unexpected result of a faulty oven thermostat that carbonized the Thanksgiving biscuits. Fortunately that carbon is only skin deep. My niece cut off the bottoms. The tops were yummy.
30 November 2024
Even though it’s November and getting colder and darker by the day, I found some confused flowers this week. Imported trees and plants that should be dormant were in bloom.
A rose, above, and an ornamental cherry tree were beautiful in the rain.
Moth mullein was battered but blooming on an almost sunny day.
Northern magnolia buds were swelling in anticipation of spring … even though it was late November.
Alas, these flowers will be no match for this week’s (finally normal) freezing temperatures.
23 November 2024
Now that the leaves have fallen fruits and seeds are prominent in the landscape.
Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) trees have prolific fruit this fall but nothing eats the “monkey balls” so they just lay on the ground to rot. If you crack one open it has sticky latex inside. Who would eat this fruit? The answer is in the video at the end!
The fruiting body of a shaggy mane mushroom (Coprinus comatus) poked up among the leaf litter near Five Points at Moraine State Park.
Red fruits of oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) are a favorite food of migrating American robin, protected by a hard yellow-orange skin that pops off in sections. It looks like a squirrel gnawed off this branch and lost his meal.
Late boneset has gone to seed in Schenley Park.
Just a few trees still have leaves. I found this colorful sweetgum along a sidewalk at CMU. Someone ripped a piece off the yellow leaf.
BONUS! Who eats monkey balls?
16 November 2024
This week I found witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blooming in Schenley Park and was startled by a whoosh of wings that passed right in front of me below eye level. I was so startled that I screamed even though I knew that …
The whoosh was an immature red-tailed hawk zipping by to catch a mouse near the wall. In stealth mode the hawk did not flap his wings but he flew pretty close to me. If I didn’t like birds I might have been freaked out. He caught the mouse and I took his picture when he settled down.
By now most oaks have lost their leaves so the predominant color in Schenley and Frick is brown. Brown on the ground and lots of bare trees.
In Schenley Park you can easily see through the woods at ground level because the deer have eaten all the thickets.
In Frick Park I spotted an unusual patch of green, probably an alien plant, so I went down there to check it out.
Sure enough, this is an alien — stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), native to Eurasia and Africa. Deer eat stinging nettle in spring and summer but are shunning it at this time of year.
By now the only place to find brilliant reds is in the sky.
9 November 2024
It’s an abundant year for red oak acorns, also called a “big mast year.” The acorns pictured above rained on us while we sat outdoors at a coffee shop. Their parent tree shades the tables in summer but is not much fun this autumn.
In two days at Schenley Park: Sun through yellow trees on Tuesday. Overcast skies and russet oaks on Wednesday.
I took a picture of a bird! An unusual, piebald pigeon.
The pattern extends to the back of its head.
In an August article, Grass Carpet in the Woods, I mentioned that “After Japanese stiltgrass goes to seed in early fall it dies and becomes a brown drape over the landscape in winter.” Well, here it is draping part of Frick Park near Wilford’s Pines.
8 November 2024
In Pittsburgh this week the ginkgo trees (Ginkgo biloba) began to drop their leaves. I found a cheerful yellow carpet under gray skies on Wednesday.
Other trees lose their leaves gradually or in the wind, but ginkgos can drop them all at once on a single day of calm weather. I tried to capture the “snowing” leaves in this 2017 video. Not very many.
@MyDailyNature does a better job of showing them fall including slow motion.
Get out soon to watch the ginkgos before the leaves are gone.
p.s. Did you know that gingkos are living fossils? Here’s more:
Native to East Asia, Ginkgo biloba is the last living species in the order Ginkgoales, which first appeared over 290 million years ago. Fossils very similar to the living species, belonging to the genus Ginkgo, extend back to the Middle Jurassic epoch approximately 170 million years ago. The tree was cultivated early in human history and remains commonly planted, and is widely regarded as a living fossil.
— Wikipedia: Ginkgo bilboa account
7 November 2024
This brilliant orange maple stood out at Hays Woods last weekend but when I examined the photo I realized there’s a lesson in this picture.
The native trees are either bare or, like the maple, on their last hurrah. Meanwhile, there are leafy green plants in the understory whose seasonal cycles do not match Pittsburgh’s. The green ones are aliens.
Notice the difference in the slideshow below. Natives are outlined in white, aliens in pink. The easy-to-see aliens are bush honeysuckle and porcelainberry.
Alien plants often leaf out early and drop leaves late. As our climate warms up they have an advantage over cautious native plants whose seasonal cycles expect frost.
In the days ahead most native plants will lose their leaves(*) and the only green left will be the aliens.
In November, alien plants really stand out.
(*) p.s. Though oaks and beeches lose most of their leaves, they retain some leaves through the winter.
3 November 2024
Last week began with light morning frost but rose to 80°F on Halloween.
The colors were gorgeous at Duck Hollow on Monday …
… while tendrils of fog chased each other across the river.
These wisps were formed at the rivers edge as clear cold air passed over warm water. Sunbeams make this a poor quality video, below, but you can see the wisps starting near shore. (You might also hear a song sparrow chipping in the background.)
Slanting light illuminated the trees at Schenley Park.
A leaf-hidden cocoon reminded me why clearing out leaves is bad for insects. This insect will overwinter on a leaf in Frick Park and emerge as — perhaps — a butterfly or month next spring. Or it may become food for a bird this winter. The insect chain is broken where don’t leave the leaves.
28 October 2024
Six of us went birding yesterday at Duck Hollow and we didn’t just stand around. Here we are on the move to look in the thickets.
Before the rest of us arrived, Claire Staples captured this image of sky, sun and fog on the Monongahela River at 7:55am.
As 8:36am the sky cleared a bit. Two contrails make dogleg turns to the north.
Our Best Bird skulked in a thicket, of course, but kept making noise. He soon became the most photographed bird of the day: a winter wren in shadow and then in the open.
Duck Hollow’s northern mockingbird is still present and noisy.
We found a bumper crop of honeysuckle fruit along the Lower Nine Mile Run Trail.
Unfortunately …
Invasive honeysuckle berries aren’t strictly bad for birds. They’re an easy food source when birds are in a pinch, but they’re kind of like junk food: Compared to native berries, they have less fat and nutrients that birds need to fuel their long-distance flights.
— Audubon news: Mystery Solved: Invasive Berries to Blame for Turning Flickers’ Feathers Pink
Our “rare” bird of the day was a flock of 16 fish crows vocalizing as they flew. eBird didn’t believe we could find that many but eBird’s “rare” filter doesn’t know about, or cannot pointpoint, the fish crow phenomenon in Pittsburgh’s East End.
See our checklist of 27 species here https://ebird.org/checklist/S200489956 and below.
Duck Hollow, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, US
Oct 27, 2024 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM … 27 species
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 26
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 11
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 3
Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) 4
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) 2
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 1
Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) 3
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) 1
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 10
American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) 6
Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) 16 Flock heading south for the Waterfront shopping center, vocalizing on their way
Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) 2
Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) 1
Winter Wren (Troglodytes hiemalis) 1
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 2
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 8
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) 1
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 60
Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) 30
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) 13
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 2
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) 4
White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) 10
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) 10
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 10
26 October 2024
Fall color is so spectacular in Pittsburgh this week that many of us have been snapping pictures everywhere we go. Here are just a few of the colorful leaves and trees I’ve seen in town.
Pawpaw leaves are turning bright yellow in Schenley Park while Virginia creeper is red along the Three Rivers Heritage bike trail at Herrs Island.
Sunlight reflecting on the water made rippling lights in the trees on 22 October. It was so warm you can hear crickets.
Yesterday in Schenley Park the trees were yellow or red depending on species.
Not to be outdone by autumn leaves, the sky turned orange at sunrise on Saturday.
Sunrise is after 7am now. We’ll “fix” that next weekend when we turn the clocks back.
