This week was a spectacular time for fall color in the Pittsburgh area. Schenley Park was especially beautiful as brilliant red sugar maples gave way to subtler sassafras, ash, buckeye and sweet gum.
By Tuesday the brightest red leaves had fallen to the ground. The forest shifted to yellow.
(photos by Kate St. John)
This October there are plentiful fruits and seeds for migrating birds in Pittsburgh. Virginia creeper, porcelain berry, and rose hips (above) provide food for cedar waxwings and robins.
Pine siskins invaded southwestern Pennsylvania this week! Many of you are reporting them at your backyard feeders while natural food sources, such as arborvitae, have created pine siskin hotspots. Siskins force open the cones with their sharp beaks and pick out the seeds.
These arborvitae cones were on the ground at a pine siskin hotspot. Three stages are pictured: Top = Spent cones as much as one year old, Middle = Opened cones that were emptied by pine siskins, Bottom = a mix of closed, opened and spent cones.
The huge acorn crop in Schenley Park is attracting many blue jays, squirrels and chipmunks. Here’s what the ground looks like below the oaks at Bartlett Shelter.
In other delights October trees, sky and shadows are spectacular.
It’s a good time to be outdoors.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Signs of fall increased this week as late September gave way to October.
Fallen leaves floated on the bubbling fountain at Botany Hall, Phipps Conservatory. Leaves on Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) began turning yellow.
Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is red.
Queen Anne’s lace (Darcus carota) now holds its seed capsules in a bundle, each one with tiny spines that cling to passing animals, including humans.
And finally, parasites take advantage of late season leaves. The red oak leaf below has two kinds of parasites: tiny galls and (I think) a fungus.
The weather is beautiful … after today’s fog burns off. Don’t forget to get outdoors!
(photos by Kate St. John)
(*) The fountain in front of Botany Hall is my very favorite because it invites me to lay my hands flat on the water’s surface. It bubbles up gently from a central pump and drips over the edge.
1 October 2020
When Rob Protz mentioned last week that a pin oak near his home is producing more acorns than he’d ever seen before I started paying attention in my neighborhood. Yes, there are lots of acorns in Oakland. It looks like a masting year for red oaks in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Oaks are one of many trees that irregularly cycle their fruit production to insure that predators don’t eat everything. They boom or bust by synchronizing seed production. White oaks have a bumper crop in 3 years, red oaks on a 4 year basis. The bumper crops are called masting years.
Acorns in the red oak group take two years to mature so those falling now were formed in the spring and summer of 2019, influenced by spring precipitation, summer temperatures, the last killing frost, and each other.
North Oakland has a lot of oaks (duh! it’s the neighborhood name) so of course we have acorns on the streets. They make a hollow “ponk” sound when they fall on parked cars.
Check out the acorn crop in your own neighborhood. Is it a masting year where you live?
p.s. In masting years like this you’ll see more acorn predators — squirrels, blue jays and deer — as we did in the big acorn year of 2013.
(photos by Kate St. John)
26 September 2020
Yesterday at Frick Park I found woolly aphids that wouldn’t move. This was a disappointment because I expected them to boogie woogie (like this!). They had all the right characteristics. They were:
Here are two more photos showing them individually and collectively.
I tried to get them to dance but they refused. I believe they were on alders so that would make them woolly alder aphids.
If you’d like to see them for yourself, look below eye level on slender trunks of shrubs next to Nine Mile Run about 20 steps to the left of the park bench that views the creek. Approximately here: 40.427685, -79.901373.
Maybe they’ll boogie woogie for you.
(photos by Kate St. John)
In September porcelain berry’s (Ampelopsis glandulosa) beautiful porcelain-like fruits show why the plant was imported as an ornamental.
Unfortunately this Asian vine is terribly invasive, engulfing small trees and draping itself over large ones.
Some people call it “wild grape” but you’ll never see grapes on it. Just porcelain berries.
This month you’ll find common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) blooming in meadows, along roads and bike trails. The name implies that it opens only in the evening but I photographed these at midday. The flowers are 1-2 inches wide. The plants are hard to miss at six feet tall.
Meanwhile, bug love continues. This pair of goldenrod soldier beetles (also called Pennsylvania leatherwing (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus)) are perched on a flower in the Aster family while working to continue their species.
Spend time outdoors this week while the weather is good. Autumn is beautiful and all too short.
p.s. Thank you to Monica Miller and John English for correcting my bug identification mistake!
p.p.s. Did you notice that Pennsylvania is misspelled in the bug’s scientific name (only 1 ‘n’). This is not the only species with this misspelling. Can you name another?
(photos by Kate St. John)
29 August 2020
It’s beginning to look like fall is coming though it hasn’t felt that way. This past week was hot and muggy yet spicebush leaves are starting to turn yellow and many flowers have gone to seed.
Wild senna (Senna hebecarpa) now has long green bean pods.
How did these flowers transform into beans?
Meanwhile at Frick Park the goats and their guard donkey are back in the large enclosure at Clayton East, munching away at invasive plants. The black goat at the fence is eating mile-a-minute weed on the fencing. Yay!
For more information about the goats see this month’s announcement. If you’d like to see the goats at work here’s a map of Frick Park’s Clayton area and the goats’ approximate location.
(photos by Kate St. John and from Wikimedia Commons; see the captions for photo credits)
This week brought lavender flowers, green fruit and an overabundance of frogs.
I found American bellflower (Campanula americana) blooming along the Duck Hollow trail with some plants reaching six feet tall. My close-up, above, shows how the pistils avoid being fertilized by their own pollen.
Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) always has a bad hair day. At Schenley Park a long-legged insect stopped by for a sip (top right of flower).
In July the unripe fruits of white fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) are green. This fall they’ll turn dark blue.
At Panther Hollow Lake and the Westinghouse Memorial pond, pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) is blooming …
… and there’s a serious overabundance of bullfrogs. Here are just a few examples.
Herons don’t nest at Schenley Park but may visit for some easy prey. Where’s a great blue heron when you need one?
(photos by Kate St. John)
12 July 2020
It’s easy to find insects in July.
Aphids in Schenley Park are expanding from plant to plant along the gravel trails, sucking the juice out of Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus).
Yellow hawkweeds (Pilosella caespitosa) are attracting bee-like insects.
And some insects are unseen but have left evidence behind. Can you see two kinds of insect evidence on this crabapple tree?
(photos by Kate St. John)
11 July 2020
This week I found two bottlebrushes in Schenley Park.
Eastern bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) is a native perennial bunchgrass that grows in partial shade, often at the edge of forests. This one was exactly where we should expect it, glowing in the sun by the Bridle Trail.
Meanwhile the bottlebrush buckeyes (Aesculus parviflora) by Panther Hollow Lake showed off in a last hurrah. They were spectacular from a distance on 9 July but up close the lowest flowers on each spike were faded and brown. Their show is about to end.
(photos by Kate St. John)
