Category Archives: Phenology

First Day of Spring

Phenology, Weather & Sky


Today is the spring equinox when the sun’s rays directly strike the Equator and day’s length is the same as night’s. 

On Friday the warm weather felt like May, but the woods are still brown.  At this time of year even the faintest sign of flowers is enough to get me excited.  Here’s a list of hopeful signs I’ve seen since my last phenology report only five days ago.

  • Robins singing before dawn.
  • Canada geese flying over my house in the city.
  • A northern flicker drumming on the metal floodlight hoods at Magee ballfield. (He’s really loud!)
  • Swelling buds make the trees look denser.  The red maples look hazy-red.  Some trees already have tiny flowers.
  • New leaves on bush honeysuckle, an invasive plant that’s always first to leaf out.
  • Red-tailed hawks mating.

My daffodils and tulips are pushing up through the leaf litter.  Today I’ll be looking for coltsfoot in bloom.

Happy Spring!

(photo of coltsfoot by Marcy Cunkelman)

Mid-March Phenology

Phenology, Schenley Park


As I walked to the Cathedral of Learning at lunchtime yesterday, I made a list of all the new Spring things I found despite the chilly weather:

  • Crocuses blooming at Schenley Plaza.  These, in fact.
  • House finches, northern cardinals, robins and song sparrows all singing.
  • Male common grackles puffing up and saying “Skrinnk!” to each other.
  • European starlings singing songs that sound like killdeer and meadowlarks.
  • More dark-eyed juncoes than before — they’re on the move.
  • A bright ice halo around the sun that became a sundog.
  • Ducks and geese migrating.  (Saw a tundra swan fly north, high over the Cathedral of Learning)
  • Spring peepers and woodcocks at Middle Creek last Sunday.  (none of those in the city)
  • Freezing nights and above freezing days.  It’s maple sugar time.
  • Immature peregrine falcons wandering and migrating.

Do you have a list of Spring things you’ve seen lately?  Leave a comment to let us know.

And about that last item in the list:  While I was observing the halo around the sun I saw a peregrine falcon fly in from the west very high up, nearly a dot.  The bird came a little lower as it approached the Cathedral of Learning (CL) but it was still quite high when it saw E2 and Dorothy mating near the nest.  It then passed over the CL to the east and used thermals to rise higher and higher. From below it looked dark, perhaps a juvenile.  When it was a tiny dot in my binoculars it moved off to the north.  I’m glad it was no threat to my two favorite peregrines. It was just passing through.

(photo by Kate St. John)

p.s.  Here’s a definition of phenology and a list for Western Pennsylvania.
p.p.s. This is my 1,000th blog entry.

Spring is near: Common Mullein

Phenology, Winter Weeds & Trees


Just as winter is turning into spring, winter weeds will soon become spring flowers and this Wednesday series will morph into a flower show.

But it will take time.

Now that the snow has melted — at least in Pittsburgh — the dormant plants have reappeared. Here’s one you’ll find easily. 

Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is a non-native biennial that overwinters as a basal rosette of fuzzy leaves, 4″ to 12″ long. 

The big rosettes are one year old.  This summer each will grow a flower stalk two to eight feet high, studded with 5-petalled yellow flowers. 

After the plant flowers, it dies, but its seeds disperse to become more mullein plants in fields and along roadsides. 

There is never a shortage of common mullein.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Singing before dawn

Bird Behavior, Phenology, Songbirds


The birds are anxious for spring to come.

Every morning a northern cardinal sings outside my window before dawn.  Some days he begins as much as an hour before sunrise, then pauses and starts again a half hour later.  He isn’t singing all day yet, but he’s getting ready.

On good days the Carolina wren pipes up after Mr. Cardinal has been singing for a while.  The wren is not as persistent.  He sings a couple of notes, then waits for first light.

The crows have been “singing” too.  Their huge Pittsburgh roost is about to disperse but that just makes them louder and more raucous as they fly before dawn.  They’re in a rush to be somewhere but I can’t tell what direction they’re going because it’s too dark to see.  They’re easy to hear, though, even the distant crows.  All of them have something to say.  Maybe the message is, “See you next winter.”

It’s March!  Yesterday was like a lion.  How soon will March be a lamb?

(photo by Cris Hamilton)

Gumballs

Phenology, Trees


I couldn’t resist this title even though these are actually sweetgum balls.

Sweetgum trees are a southern species whose natural northern limit barely extends into Pennsylvania.  However, they’re a favorite street tree so you’ll find them further north.

Sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua) have star-shaped leaves with 5-7 lobes.  They’re easy to identify in winter because their woody seed balls dangle from the branches.  American goldfinches dangle from the gumballs to extract the seeds.

The gumballs look spiny but after a harsh winter they don’t hurt — or at least they don’t hurt me. See below(*)

In early spring the seed balls fall off the tree and litter the ground below.  If you’re not looking up, that’s how you’ll discover you’re near a sweetgum tree.

My strangest encounter with “gumballs” was while participating in the Mt. Davis Christmas Bird Count in Somerset County, Pennsylvania about 15 years ago.  At one of our stops during the count we got out of the car at a bottomland near an old farmstead.  Parked in what used to be the side yard was an abandoned Volvo station wagon and inside the back of that car were thousands and thousands of sweetgum balls.  It was filled to the windowsills.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to collect those “gumballs,” then left them in an old car.  I wonder why.

 

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

(*) Sweetgum balls can hurt bare feet, but not always.  See the comments below for remarks on hurting.  See this American Orchard blog post for an experiment in Ohio showing they don’t hurt except with bare feet on pavement.  I rarely walk with bare feet so I’m immune  😉

Watching for Spring

Phenology


We’re having ugly weather here for the next two days.  Freezing rain, rain, sleet, ice and then gusty winds, falling temperatures and snow showers by tomorrow afternoon.  Yuk. 

Will spring ever come? 

Yes!  I’ve already seen a few signs of spring.  Here are some hints of good weather to come:

  • American goldfinches are slowly molting into their yellow, breeding feathers.
  • Red-tailed hawks are soaring in pairs.  Sometimes they perch side by side. 
  • Peregrine falcons have begun courting.  E2 is bringing breakfast to Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning.  Louie has been calling to Dori at the Gulf Tower, “Come here!”
  • Song sparrows, Carolina wrens and northern cardinals are singing at dawn.
  • Starlings’ beaks are starting to turn yellow.
  • By the end of this month, the flocks of crows will begin to disband.

Hang in there.  Spring is coming.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman, who noticed this turning-yellow goldfinch.  Thanks, Marcy!)

The Trees Reveal Summer’s Secrets

Phenology, Trees


The trees are bare in Pittsburgh.  Last week we had a day of rain followed by gusty winds … and that was that.  All gone by November 18.

Now that the leaves are down you can see what they hid all summer.  Easiest to find are large nests of sticks or leaves but there are plenty of other treasures, some large, some small.

Yesterday I found this hornets’ nest.  It’s so far up in the maple tree that my photo doesn’t give you a sense of scale but it’s huge.  Only a bird, a snake, or a squirrel could reach it but they won’t do so while the nest is occupied.  Hornets vigorously defend their nests!

By now the hornets are gone.  Most have died and the juvenile queens have left to hibernate underground, under logs, or in hollow trees.  Since hornets use their nests for only one breeding season, this is the time of year when it’s safe to collect a hornets’ nest for display.

Take time now to look for summer’s secrets.  By winter’s end the nests will be weathered and broken.  Look hard and you might find the tiny, camouflaged cup nest of a ruby-throated hummingbird.

(photo by Kate St. John)

Explosion of Yellow

Phenology, Trees


An explosion of yellow.  That’s what Jonathan Nadle said of this photo he took in Beechview yesterday.  What a beautiful day!

The trees in Pittsburgh still have leaves, but don’t assume we have some special formula for extending autumn.  This tree is yellow because it’s confused.

This is a Norway maple, so it sheds its leaves in response to fall light levels in northern Europe.  When it experiences 10 hours of daylight, which is exactly what we’ll have today, it thinks it’s mid-October.

You can take the tree out of Norway but you can’t take Norway out of the tree.

(photo by Jonathan Nadle)

Most of the Trees Are Bare?

Phenology, Trees
Bare trees at Shenango Lake, 31 Oct 2010 (photo by Kate St. John)

2 November 2010

Western Pennsylvania was a changed landscape last Sunday, 31 Oct 2010, when I drove to Shenango Lake.

Only a week before the trees showed some fall color and many still had leaves, but now most trees are bare except for russet stands of oaks and lone tulip poplars with yellow tops like candle flames.

For many years I kept track of the date when the trees lost their leaves.  It’s a useful marker for scientific studies.  For instance, it’s the first piece of local information you need for doing a deer density count(*).

Once I started tracking the dates when “Most Trees Are Bare” and “Most Trees Have Leaves” (real leaves, not just hints) I realized there are leaves on our trees only six months of the year.  In the City of Pittsburgh, where our growing season is longer because of urban heat, most trees are bare by November 15 and most have leaves by May 5.

You can track this too.  The oaks still had their leaves last weekend so I’ll wager none of you have reached the “Most Trees Are Bare” stage.  But that date is coming very soon.

Keep watching.

(photo by Kate St. John)

(*) To calculate deer density, you walk a transect counting the number of deer scat piles on top of winter’s fallen leaves.  Use the number of scat piles, the number of days since all the leaves fell, and the average number of times a deer drops scat per day to calculate deer per square mile.