Category Archives: Weather & Sky

Cold Feet

Doves & Chickens, Weather & Sky
Mourning Dove in winter (photo by Marcy Cunklelman)
Mourning dove (photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

11 January 2010

Yesterday a mourning dove landed at my feeder with a clenched foot, probably suffering from frostbite.  The temperature was 9oF when I saw him.  It had been 2oF at dawn.

Even in severe cold weather we rarely see birds with frostbitten feet.  Gulls and Canada geese stand on ice, cardinals and chickadees hop on snow, and we take for granted that their bare feet won’t be hurt as ours would be. Birds can do this because of a special adaption that allows their feet to be cold in comfort. 

Birds’ feet have fewer nerves and blood vessels and a unique circulatory system.  The veins and arteries in their legs are intertwined so that cold blood leaving their feet is warmed by the arteries delivering warm blood.  As Dr. Tony Bledsoe pointed out, “This operates as a counter-current exchange system, so that nearly all of the warmth in the descending blood is transferred to the ascending blood.”

For some reason this system isn’t as effective in mourning doves and their feet are prone to freezing.  Since they’re a game bird (did you know they’re hunted in 38 states?) they’ve been studied extensively.  In one study, mourning doves with frostbitten feet were rescued.  They recovered from their injuries in six weeks but their damaged toes fell off.  They survived to a normal life span with fewer toes, but life is short for a mourning dove anyway.  Their average adult life expectancy is only one year.

Though the mourning dove in my backyard may lose some toes I know he’ll survive if he has enough to eat.  The real killer right now is lack of food and since mourning doves eat from the ground their food is repeatedly covered by snowfall.

I’ll keep my feeders filled and hope for the best.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

More?

Weather & Sky

Nearly 10" of snow (photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
It feels like it’s been snowing forever.

Marcy Cunkelman sent me this picture taken in her yard on Wednesday at a moment when – miraculously – it was not snowing.  Last night as she sent me email it was snowing heavily in the dark. 

The ruler is buried by now.  Good thing it’s bright orange.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

Whitecaps and Ice

Weather & Sky

Monongahela River in winter, Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)
Day after day we’ve had unusually cold weather with highs in the teens and windchill as low as minus 10.  This may be springlike in the Arctic but it’s too cold for Pittsburgh. 

Most people stayed indoors yesterday but I was itching for a walk so I bundled up and trudged from my home in Greenfield across the Hot Metal Bridge to South Side’s riverfront park. 

I was hoping to see some really good birds but that was not to be.  Instead I was treated to whitecaps and ice. 

Yow! it was cold!  I tried to show the whitecaps in this picture but I couldn’t zoom my cell phone camera with my gloves on and my eyes watered as I faced the wind.  I’m lucky the camera could focus.

See that white skim on the river?  That’s ice.  Beyond it is a raft of ring-billed gulls riding the waves.  Periodically they lift off and ride the wind instead. 

Behind me a flock of mallards wait for their patrons to arrive with a handout of bread.  Canada geese fly to the river or fly back to the grass at the Technology Center.  A mockingbird “chakks” to claim his patch of oriental bittersweet.

If I’m brave I’ll go back to the park later this week to see what new birds show up.  The colder it gets the more likely a really good bird will arrive to take advantage of the open water.   

Brrrrr!

(photo by Kate St. John)

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

Musings & News, Weather & Sky

White Christmas (photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
OK, I’ll admit it.  I love snow.  I hate to drive in it but everything else about it is gorgeous. 

I love when it’s 28oF with no wind and there are big snowflakes falling around me.  Better yet, I love the day after a snowstorm when the sky clears and the sun glints on untouched snow.  Bing Crosby describes my ideal in his song White Christmas.  Beautiful!

But I’m conflicted.  As I said, I hate – even avoid – driving in snow so I’ve been keeping track of the holiday weather forecast because I’ll be driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit my husband’s family on Christmas (my husband doesn’t drive).  I look at the forecast every day.  Will there be snow?

The good news is that it won’t snow on Christmas Day, the bad news is it’ll rain.  Cold rain.  A forecast high of 41oF in Pittsburgh and 36o in Somerset which is, in my opinion, the Bad Weather Capitol of Pennsylvania and guaranteed to have the worst weather on the Turnpike.

Alas.  Western Pennsylvania looks like Bing Crosby’s White Christmas right now but when Christmas Day comes I’ll just have to dream of it.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

The Sun Stands Still

Musings & News, Weather & Sky
Sun pillar in Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)
Sun pillar in Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)

21 December 2009

Today is the winter solstice, the day the sun stands still.  That’s what it means in Latin:  sol is sun and stice is from sistere meaning to stand still.

I doubt that most modern day people notice the sun stops its southward movement today, pauses, and in the days ahead begins to move north.

We can afford to ignore it.  We have electricity and our days aren’t governed by the sun’s movement so we can safely leave the calculations of its passage to others.  They’ll let us know.

Besides, the change is slow, something our brains have little patience to observe.  We’re wired to notice rapid movement because it can mean danger or food.

Our gadgets take advantage of this trait and provide a constant source of movement and distraction.  I know this all too well.  My computer and cell phone distract me all the time.  The up side is that my cell phone can take pictures like this one of a sun pillar.

Sun pillars are usually brief events that occur when the sun is close to the horizon and its light reflects on ice crystals that have nearly horizontal and parallel planar surfaces.  In other words, the ice crystals lined up just right and so did the sun.

Will I notice the sun standing still today?  No.  I’m glad someone told me about it.

(photo of a sun pillar in Pittsburgh by Kate St. John)

Snow

Weather & Sky

Snow on pines (photo by Dianne Machesney)
Our first big snow of the season accumulated yesterday and threw a wrench into several Christmas Bird Count events, affecting both the number of participants and the number of birds.  Snow is lingering this morning so it’ll affect today’s counts as well.

The first snow always changes the mix of birds.  Species who don’t like it leave the area and those who do move in. 

We’ve had large flocks of American robins in Pittsburgh for weeks but the snow cover will prompt them to leave for the south.  Meanwhile snow buntings, rough-legged hawks and short-eared owls will be easier to find near Volant in Lawrence County now that the ground is covered. 

It’ll be interesting to see who’s here and who’s not by mid-week. 

Bundle up and enjoy it!

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Winter beauty

Weather & Sky

Latodami Field, North Park, 29-Nov-09 (photo by Dianne Machesney)
Winter in Pittsburgh is mild compared to Pennsylvania’s northern and mountainous regions. 

Yesterday it snowed but didn’t stick – at least in my neighborhood.  We usually don’t have snow cover in the city until late December, and then it’s likely to melt.  Even so, a snowless winter can be beautiful when the sun shines, as it will today. 

Here’s a photo Dianne Machesney took a week ago at Latodami’s upper field in North Park.  The muted browns of winter have a special kind of beauty.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

On Hold

Weather & Sky

This was supposed to be my big day for visiting the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch near Central City, PA but the weather in the mountains and in northern Pennsylvania is dreadful right now.

Yesterday’s news of 4.5 inches of snow in State College — and more on the way — sent everyone scrambling to cancel outdoor activities across the state.  Here in Pittsburgh where it’s cold and rainy today’s neighborhood cleanup was canceled too. 

Everything is on hold.  So is migration.

I hope the birds who are waiting out the storm survive these days of bad weather.  It will be hard for them to find something to eat under all that snow. 

(photo of snow damage in State College by Jesse Ferrell, linked from his Accuweather community blog site.  Click here for more of Jesse’s photos of the State College snowfall.)

Orion Time

Phenology, Weather & Sky
Orion animation by Michelet B via Wikimedia Commons
Orion animation by Michelet B via Wikimedia Commons

11 October 2009

Winter is coming.  Orion the Hunter is back.

Hidden all summer, the Orion constellation is visible again in our southern sky.  I first noticed him last week, just before dawn.

You can pick out his features in the photo at left.  The line of three stars in the middle is his belt, the vertical line below that is his dagger and the four stars at the four corners mark his shoulders and knees. The unusual red star at his top left shoulder is Betelgeuse.  Click here to see how the Ancient Greeks made this pattern into a hunter.

Orion lies on the celestial equator so he’s visible in each hemisphere in winter. He’s one of my favorite constellations but truth be told he’s one of the few I can see.  My neighborhood is bad for star gazing due to city lights and Pittsburgh’s frequent cloud cover.  If the Ancient Greeks had seen as few stars as I do, they wouldn’t have named so many constellations.

Right now Orion is in the south but by January he’ll be at his best.  Meanwhile he has a special claim to fame this month.  On October 21 the Orionid meteor shower will flash in the space between Orion and Gemini, above and left of Betelgeuse.

So keep looking up.  Even at night there’s always something to see.

(Orion animation by Michelet B via Wikimedia Commons; click on image to see the original)