26 December 2023
Take a break from the holiday bustle to watch northern birds in the snow at two live feeder cams:
You’ll see chickadees and nuthatches as well as northern specialties like evening grosbeaks and redpolls. Enjoy!
22 October 2023
The great-tailed grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus), a close relative of our common grackle, is so numerous and annoying in Austin, Texas in the winter that there are always news stories about them. This interview with a grackle researcher revealed a very cool fact about great-tailed grackles that probably applies to our grackles as well.
Great-tailed grackles can move their eyes independently to keep watch in two different directions at the same time! Check out the video below.
Look how he can move his eyes!
(credits are in the captions; click on the captions to see the originals)
10 October 2023
Migrating chipping sparrows (Spizella passerina) have just begun to arrive in Pittsburgh and they look different than they did last spring. The adults are fading and the juveniles, which never did match the adults, now resemble other species. We have a category for Confusing Fall Warblers. There ought to be one for Confusing Fall Sparrows.
From mid-March to mid-April chipping sparrows molt rapidly into breeding plumage with a rusty cap, a sharp white swatch above the black eyeline and rusty-orange tones on the wings.
In mid-August the adults being two and a half months of molting into duller non-breeding plumage, looking ragged in September and ending up with the brownish cap and muted facial markings of non-breeding plumage.
Meanwhile the juveniles lose the spotted breast they fledged with and gain sharper facial markings. Sometimes they look like clay-colored sparrows which are indeed rare in Pittsburgh.
Let’s compare the young chipping sparrow at Frick Park to an October clay-colored sparrow: chipping on the left, clay-colored on the right below. These small photos are just like the long distance view in the field.
They look almost the same. What’s the difference?
And just to shake things up, there was a leucistic adult chipping sparrow at Frick last Saturday who looked as if he had been dunked face-first in white paint. His forehead, cheeks and throat were so white that it the camera had a hard time picking up the details.
Theorectically leucism (lack of pigment) is in his genes so his face will always looks like this no matter what plumage he’s in. He’s the only chipping sparrow I can identify as an individual.
p.s. More confusion: When American tree sparrows arrive later this fall they’ll resemble chipping sparrows in breeding plumage, except that the chipping sparrows will be in non-breeding plumage. Click here and scroll down to see American tree sparrows compared to chipping sparrows at All About Birds.
(photos from Charity Kheshgi, Lauri Shaffer, Steve Gosser and Wikimedia Commons)
6 October 2023
In October we see woolly bear caterpillars (Pyrrharctia isabella) out in the open crossing the trails. Woolly bears overwinter as caterpillars so this month they’re busy looking for the perfect place to spend the winter in leaf litter, under bark, or beneath a fallen log.
Leaf litter is key winter habitat for a lot of insects including springtails, millipedes, earthworms, butterflies and moths.
It also shelters salamanders and newts …
… and provides an insect hunting ground for birds including eastern towhees, dark-eyed juncos, robins and mockingbirds.
If you’ve been thinking about “wilding” your yard — even just a little bit — now is a great time to start. Leave the leaves. You don’t have to leave it messy. Here’s advice on what to do.
Leaving the leaves and other plant debris doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your yard to the wilderness. The leaves don’t need to be left exactly where they fall. You can rake them into garden beds, around tree bases, or into other designated areas. Too many leaves can kill grass, but in soil they can suppress weeds, retain moisture, and boost nutrition.
Avoid shredding leaves with a mower. Raking or blowing are alternatives that will keep leaves whole for the best cover and protect the insects and eggs already living there.
If you decide you need to clean up the leaves and debris in spring, make sure you wait until late in the season so as not to destroy all the life you’ve worked to protect.
— Xerxes Society: Leave the Leaves: Winter Habitat Protection
Take a break this weekend. Don’t bag those leaves! Just push them aside for wildlife. 🙂
(photos by Kate St. John and from Wikimedia Commons)
(*) p.s. The millipede was easy to photograph because it was dead, probably the victim of a parasitic fungus that prompts the millipede to climb high on a twig before it dies. I wrote down the name of the fungus when I took the picture but cannot read my writing. Perhaps it’s Anthrophaga myriapodia.
19 September 2023
Right now warbler migration is at its autumn peak in southwestern Pennsylvania but, as usual, the birds are hard to identify. Their fall plumage is dull and confusing, they move fast so we never get a good look at them, and we don’t get much practice because many of them are here only in September. And then they’re gone.
This year it dawned on me that the magnolia warbler (Setophaga magnolia) is super-easy to identify if all you see is its butt, as shown at top and below.
The “maggie” has a unique pattern on its undertail, easy to see on the free Visual Finders PDF, downloaded from The Warbler Guide. I’ve highlighted the magnolia warbler on this screenshot of Page 15.
Note that the magnolia warbler is the only warbler with a white belly, white undertail coverts, white undertail and a large black straight-edged tip on the tail. It looks as if this warbler was dipped tail first in black paint.
On some juveniles the tip is dark gray but the pattern is the same.
So this view is the best way to identify a magnolia warbler.
The undertail tells the tale!
Download Stephenson & Whittle’s free Visual Finders PDF at The Warbler Guide.
(photos by Dave Brooke, diagrams from The Warbler Guide free download)
I highly recommend the 560-page The Warbler Guide by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle which I use at home after noting the warbler’s key features in the field. In my opinion the book is indispensable if you take photographs.
11 September 2023
While on the way to somewhere else I found … the bluest thrush.
According to Birds of the World, the grandala (Grandala coelicolor) is a gregarious thrush that makes a vertical migration in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau(*) from barren alpine breeding grounds at 3900–5500 m (12,800-18,000 ft) to rocky mountainside valleys and ridges at 3000–4300 m (9,800-14,000 ft), sometimes as low as 2000 m (6,500 ft).
To put this in perspective, if grandalas lived in the U.S they could only breed on Denali (20,000 ft) or the highest Rocky Mountains. Some of them never come down as low as the highest point in the Rockies, the peak of Mount Elder.
Grandalas are the same size as wood thrushes and like the wood thrush are the only species in their genus, but there the similarity ends. For instance, grandalas are sexually dimorphic with royal blue males and brownish-gray females.
Grandalas have versatile diets tuned to their cold climate lives. They eat insects in summer and fruit in fall and winter.
Like cedar waxwings grandalas travel in huge flocks in fall and winter. When they perch they flick their wings and tails.
Watch the bluest thrush in this 4:45 minute video by RoundGlass Sustain.
(*) Grandalas occur at high altitudes in these countries/territories: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China, northern Myanmar.
(credits are in the captions)
9 August 2023
Have you noticed a lot of ruby-throated hummingbirds at your feeders lately? Their fall migration is already underway so this month is the perfect time to see them up close at Powdermill.
Powdermill Nature Reserve, operated by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, has one of the longest continually-running bird banding stations in the U.S. Throughout the year they see species abundance ebb and flow based on weather and migration timing.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) start their fall migration earlier than many other species so they’re more abundant than usual now. Come to Westmoreland County for a family friendly hummingbird event on:
Hummingbird Day, Saturday 19 August 2023, 9:00am-noon at
Powdermill Nature Reserve
1795 Route 381
Rector, PA 15677
Learn about hummingbirds, the plants that attract them, and how to care for your feeders so the birds stay healthy. There will also tips on taking great bird photos. And if the weather is good and the birds cooperate we(*) will get to see hummingbirds up close like this one in the bander’s hand. This bird was banded by Bob Mulvihill in Marcy Cunkelman’s garden in July 2015.
(*) I say “we” because I’ll be there, too, to teach you about hummingbirds. I’m looking forward to it!
This event is free but do register here in advance so Powdermill knows to expect you. As the registration page says:
Events fill up fast! Registration is recommended to guarantee your spot and help us plan timing, seating, and/or trail routes. If there are spots available at the time of the program, non-registered individuals can join on a first-come, first-served basis.
— CMNH: Hummingbird Day Event
Click here for more information. Hope to see you there.
(hummingbird photos by Steve Gosser and Kate St. John, Powdermill photo embedded from carnegie.org)
1 August 2023
Fermentation happens in the wild when sugars in fruit are exposed to yeast and bacteria on the skin. A crack in the skin starts the process, then animals consume it with sometimes hilarious results. Groundhogs and squirrels fall over. Waxwings get so loopy they cannot fly.
Nectar ferments, too, which prompted UC Berkeley biologist Robert Dudley to wonder how hummingbirds react to it. Do they like it or avoid it? Do hummingbirds get drunk?
Dudley’s study, published this June in Royal Society Open Science, concludes that hummingbirds indeed drink fermented sugar-water but they drink responsibly. Hummingbirds know how to stay sober.
Dudley tasked several undergraduate students with experimenting on the hummers visiting the feeder outside his office window to find out whether alcohol in sugar water was a turn-off or a turn-on. All three of the test subjects were male Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte anna), year-round residents of the Bay Area.
They found that hummingbirds happily sip from sugar water with up to 1% alcohol by volume, finding it just as attractive as plain sugar water, but they sip only half as much when the sugar water contains 2% alcohol. …
“They burn the alcohol and metabolize it so quickly. Likewise with the sugars. So they’re probably not seeing any real effect. They’re not getting drunk,” he added.
— UC Berkeley press release, Hummingbirds drink alcohol more often than you think
Hummingbirds regulate their alcoholic intake. This stupefied Bohemian waxwing, reeling from too much fermented fruit, needs to have a conversation with them.
p.s. Want to learn more about hummingbirds and see them being banded and in the hand? Come to Hummingbird Day on Saturday 19 August 2023, 9a-noon at
Powdermill Nature Reserve
1795 Route 381
Rector, PA 15677
Click here for event information and free registration. I’ll be there. More news later.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
31 July 2023
Yesterday morning’s walk at Frick Park had great weather, lots of participants and good birds.
Early in the walk we encountered horsenettle (Solanum carolinense), pictured above, whose flowers are similar to those of its relatives in the Solanaceae or Nightshade family including tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant (called aubergine in the UK). Though it’s not a nettle, its common name refers to the thorns on its leaves. Did you know the leaves smell like potatoes when crushed? Thorns prevent me from trying this.(*)
Best Birds were a very cooperative yellow billed cuckoo and an elusive green heron. The cuckoo posed for us, the green heron zoomed away. Later the heron zoomed in and landed above us near a second green heron. Two!
In the Nine Mile Run valley I marveled at this confluence of a muddy tributary with the main stem of Nine Mile Run. This, in microcosm, is like the confluence of the clear-running Allegheny with the muddy Monongahela River at The Point.
Our eBird checklist is here and shown below.
Frick Park–Nine Mile Run, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Jul 30, 2023 8:30 AM – 10:30 AM
1.75 miles, 24 species, 17 participants
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 2
Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) 2 Good looks at one of them
Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica) 2
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) 1
Green Heron (Butorides virescens) 2
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 3
Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) 5
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) 1
Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus) 3
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 5
Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) 3
Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) 2 Youngster chasing an adult for food
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 3
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 5
Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) 5
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 12
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 3
Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla) 1
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 7
Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) 4
Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) 2
Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea) 1 Female seen briefly
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 7
Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) 3
(photos by/for Kate St. John)
(*)NOTE: This just in! An article about edible Nightshades in The Guardian includes potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/31/the-truth-about-nightshades-four-online-myths-about-potatoes-tomatoes-and-aubergines.)
3 July 2023
I’ve had to cancel so many bird walks this spring that I decided to hold yesterday’s 8:30am outing at Duck Hollow despite the fact that it was certain to pour within 45 minutes.
The sky was gloomy gray, the river was like glass and the fish were jumping. The only spot of color was nodding thistle (Carduus nutans), a biennial from Eurasia.
Just two of us were hardy enough (crazy enough?) to show up. It started raining steadily in only 40 minutes. We called it quits and went home.
But the birds were quite good considering the weather. Favorites were …
Our checklist is here https://ebird.org/checklist/S143326273 and listed below.
Duck Hollow, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, US
Jul 2, 2023 8:30 AM – 9:10 AM
— 18 species —
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 10
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 12
Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica) 10
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) 5
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) 4, Two begging youngsters
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 1
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis) 6
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 4
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) 1 Recently fledged with rumpled gape.
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 5
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) 12, feeding young
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 3
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) 7
Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) 3
Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia) 1
Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) 1
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 5
(photos by Kate St. John)
