In August the hummingbird population is at its peak as adults and this year’s juveniles prepare to migrate. Searching for nectar, they visit flowers and backyard feeders. They’re also attracted to shallow, running water.
Here are two soothing videos of hummingbirds bathing.
Neither one describes where it’s located and that presents a challenge …
Can you identify these tiny bathing beauties?
(videos from YouTube. Click on the YouTube logo on each video to see the original.)
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1 August 2017
We’ve all seen fish jump out of the water to catch flying insects but African tigerfish do much more than that.
Back in 2011, scientists conducting a telemetry study of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) in South Africa were surprised to find that their subjects were being eaten by fish!
African tigerfish (Hydrocynus vittatus) are aggressive animals up to 3.5 feet long with very sharp teeth. During the study at Schroda Dam, the fish jumped out of the water and ate low-flying birds. In 15 days they ate 300 barn swallows!
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In 2014 scientists used high definition video to record the fish in action. Click here to see.
Fortunately, there’s someone on hand to eat the tigerfish.
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Watch out, barn swallows! Don’t fly too low!
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals)
On Tuesday I heard a sound in Schenley Park that I didn’t recognize: a melodious call from a baby bird.
I found the bird flutter-climbing from a low perch to a high spot in a tree, moving fast and begging the entire time. He had downy tufts on his head, a striped chest, big feet, short wings and an almost non-existent tail. He looked a lot like the bird pictured above.
I couldn’t identify the fledgling so I waited for his mother to bring food and she solved the mystery. A bird just like her is pictured below (from Wikimedia Commons).
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If you don’t recognize her, here’s another clue. The father bird looks like this. (I didn’t see him that day.)
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Obviously scarlet tanagers change a lot as they grow into breeding adults. Read more about them in this vintage article from July 2008:
(photo of fledgling by Chuck Tague. photos of adult female and male from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals)
24 July 2017
Last week Pittsburgh Today published a brief article about ecosystem health in the Pittsburgh region. One of their points caught my eye: Pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) have made a big comeback in our area.
I’ve noticed this too. During Pittsburgh’s 2016 Christmas Bird Count last December, many of us found pileated woodpeckers — so much so that Audubon’s summary of the count included this remark: “Pileated Woodpecker was reported at a higher than expected number. 48 individuals represents a new high count for Pittsburgh. ”
On the same day as Pittsburgh Today’s article, I also received an email from Tree Pittsburgh with news about a project this fall to replace ash trees lost to emerald ash borer (read more here.)
Without intending it, the topics are related. My hunch is that we have more pileated woodpeckers in Pittsburgh because we have more under-the-bark insects and more dead and dying ash trees, suitable for nesting, since the emerald ash borer came to town 10 years ago.
Woodpeckers are doing really well. It’s the only bright spot in the emerald ash borer plague.
(photo credits: Pileated woodpecker by Chuck Tague. Dead ash tree with pileated woodpecker hole by Kate St. John)
While I was on vacation in Europe I missed the chance to report on an unusual bird in Pennsylvania this summer.
First seen in early June, dickcissels (Spiza americana) have now been reported in 14 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, north, south, east and west.
Their sudden appearance in the middle of the nesting season is a tribute to their peripatetic lives. If nesting fails at their preferred location they’ll travel a thousand miles to find a better nesting site.
Perhaps they came to Pennsylvania this year because there’s a severe drought where they usually nest in the plains of North and South Dakota and Montana. Bob Mulvihill wrote about this correlation during the dickcissel invasion of 1988 (click here and scroll to page 6).
In the summer of 2012 when there was a severe drought in the Midwest, dickcissels came back to Pennsylvania. Read more about them in this vintage post from June 2012: Dickcissels
(June 2017 photo by Anthony Bruno)
Take a break at the end of the week to watch birds in the backyard.
This soothing video highlights a British bird, the hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes), whose large beak is perfect for opening seeds.
Three other birds make a cameo appearance. Can you identify them?
p.s. The hawfinch is related to our evening grosbeaks.
(video by Ian Lavell on YouTube)
3 July 2017
In western Pennsylvania we have two kinds of chickadees: black-capped and Carolina. Unfortunately they hybridize in Pittsburgh and look so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart.
The Birds of Europe lists five “chickadees” in Britain though they’re called tits, like our titmouse. Only two are in the same genus as Pittsburgh’s chickadees and only those two look similar. Here are all five.
The great tit (Parus major), pictured above, is 60% heavier than a Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) and more colorful. He sports a yellow chest with a bold black stripe.
The coal tit (Periparus ater) is smaller than a Carolina chickadee though he looks large in the photo below. Unlike our chickadees, his nape is white and he sometimes raises a tiny black crest on his head.
The blue tit or Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) is about the same size as a Carolina chickadee but prettier in yellow, black, white and blue.
The marsh tit (Poecile palustris) and willow tit (Poecile montanus) look similar to each other and to our chickadees. They’re all in the same genus, Poecile.
I think British chickadees are prettier than ours. My favorite one is blue.
(all photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals)
p.s. on 18 Dec 2022: Robert Duncan points out there are 6 tits — including the “Crested Tit”, which in the UK is only found in The Highlands of Scotland.
Imagine having this beautiful exotic bird at your backyard feeder on a regular basis.
One wild parakeet is a joy to watch. Two are nice, too. But how many constitute a nuisance?
Rose-ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri) are native to Asia and Africa and popular as pets in Europe, especially because they can mimic the human voice. However escaped rose-ringed parakeets are now feral in many European cities and the seventh most numerous bird in London gardens (backyards). Counts conducted a decade ago put Britain’s feral parakeet population at 30,000 birds.
In large flocks the parakeets are noisy and hungry, even voracious. They shout everywhere they go.
“Rose-ringed Parakeet (Psittacula krameri)” from xeno-canto by Timo Tschentscher. Genre: Psittacidae.
Ironically, the birds have reached two tipping points. Their population is increasing in urban Europe but declining in their homeland, India, where they’re trapped for the pet trade.
How many is too many in Europe? How few is too few in the wild?
Read more about the U.K. population at CBC news and on the RSBP website.
p.s. The bird pictured at the feeder is female and not nearly as colorful as the male, below. The males have rosy rings on their necks.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals)
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I recently acquired a field guide to European birds and was surprised at the similarities between their birds and ours. For the next two weeks I’ll explore some of the intriguing discoveries I made in Birds of Europe by Svensson, Mullarney and Zetterström.
The common English names of European birds are often similar to those in North America but you can’t assume that the species are actually the same. Here’s why there’s name confusion. We sometimes have …
Crows, jays and ravens illustrate two of these points.
Crow, Crow:
The crow pictured at the top of this article looks like an American crow, but he’s not. You’d have to know he lives in London to know he’s a carrion crow (Corvus corone). Carrion crows are the same size as American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and have the same habits. Both are in the Corvus family, though not the same species. Here’s an American crow.
Jay, Jay:
Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) and blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) have the same common name with different adjectives. Though they look different they are both in the Corvus family and have similar habits. It’s not a stretch to call them both jays. Here’s what they look like.
Raven:
A raven is a raven is a raven. The common raven has the same name and is the same species on both continents: Corvus corax. Whew! No confusion with this one.
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Watch for more European birds in the days ahead.
(photo credits: Book cover linked from Amazon.com, all other photos from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the images to see the originals)
This week I noticed that the birds aren’t singing as much as they did a month ago. Song sparrows and American robins are vocal but Baltimore orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks have fallen silent.
Gray catbirds have been on and off. They sang all spring but were quiet in mid-June. This week they began singing again. Birds of North America online told me why.
Gray catbirds sing from the moment they return in the spring until late in incubation, then become quiet when the eggs hatch and young are in the nest. Their first brood fledged in mid June and now, in late June, they’re nest-building and incubating their second brood. That’s why they’re singing again, though not as often.
Other birds have never stopped. Northern mockingbird “lonely bachelors” are still singing all night. John Bauman heard this one outside his window at 1:30am Friday morning!
By mid-July most birds will stop singing.
Maybe the midnight mockingbird will take the hint but it’s possible he’ll continue into August. Yikes!
(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)