Screeching All Day

Bird Behavior, Peregrines
Silver Girl complains at the Cathedral of Learning nestbox, 6 July 2022 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

7 July 2022

Parenthood can be trying especially when grown children who were briefly independent return home and complain that you’re not feeding them enough. Pitt peregrines Morela and Ecco are going through this with their two female youngsters, Yellow Girl and Silver Girl.

Last weekend Yellow Girl demanded a handout. Then a brief respite of silence ended this week with intensive screeching. I heard it yesterday morning as I walked past Phipps Conservatory and searched the sky for a young peregrine chasing an adult. Nothing.

What I heard was Silver Girl at the nest, a third of a mile away, screeching at the top of her lungs as shown in the video below. At the start you can hear Ecco chupping and whistling while Silver Girl screams. She calmed down for a moment but it didn’t last. She screeched off and on all day.

Weaning these youngsters from parental care is a very noisy activity.

(video from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Lightning and Fish

Fish, Frogs, Weather & Sky
Lighting strikes as the USS Abraham Lincoln transits the Strait of Malacca (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

6 July 2022

When a thunderstorm approaches at the beach or a swimming pool, the lifeguards tell everyone to get out of the water. Lightning often strikes water and anyone in it can be electrocuted.

Fish live in water so why don’t they die from lightning? The National Weather Service explains:

Before a lightning strike, a charge builds up along the water’s surface. When lightning strikes, most of electrical discharge occurs near the water’s surface. Most fish swim below the surface and are unaffected.

— National Weather Service: Lightning and Fish

This NWS animation shows the positive charge building on the surface and the negatively charged lightning strike spreading horizontally. Fish swim below it all.

Lightning hits positive charge at water’s surface (animation from NWS)

Humans swim on the water’s surface where lightning has its greatest effect. In addition, lightning is a hazard in open outdoor spaces like beaches.

West Beach Galveston, 1973 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Interestingly in the US, the most dangerous activity during lightning is fishing; beaches are second. We thought golf was the worst but it is far down on the list.

US lightning death statistics by activity, 2010-2021 (table from National Weather Service, Paducah, KY)

During a thunderstorm the fish are safer than the fisherman.

(photos and animations from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

Mama Possum at Full Capacity

Mammals
Female Virginia opossum with a full pouch (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

1 July 2022

By mid June Mama Possum looks very “pregnant” though it’s merely that her pouch is full of growing babies.

Eventually the babies are too large to fit inside so they travel on top.

Momma opossum with babies on her back (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The whole family looks vulnerable. How can this be safe when a fox shows up?

Perhaps they all play dead.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons)

By The 4th Of July

Books & Events, Phenology
Cornfield in early July in Ontario (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 July 2022

Some Rules of Thumb for Nature are timed “by the 4th of July.” Here are three. Can you think of more?

Corn is knee high by the 4th of July. Or at least it should be. This year in Minnesota there was worry that it might not come true. KARE 11 in Minneapolis reports:

Native rhododendrons bloom by 4th of July in the Laurel Highlands. Cultivated rhododendrons bloom in May because they’ve been bred to do so.

Rhododendron blooming, Fern Cliff, Ohiopyle, 1 July 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)

Most songbirds stop singing around the 4th of July. Others will follow this month.

Baltimore oriole (photo by Steve Gosser)

Birds sing to attract mates and maintain their nesting territories. Those that migrate to Central and South America are on such a tight schedule that they finish nesting and stop singing by early to mid July. Song sparrows, robins, and cardinals are still singing because they have new nests this month.

When is the last time you heard a Baltimore oriole sing? For that matter, when did you last see one? He won’t leave until September but he is far more discreet than he was in May.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, Kate St. John and Steve Gosser)

Yellow Girl Demands A Handout

Bird Behavior, Peregrines
Yellow Girl looking for a handout, 2 July 2022 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

UPDATE 7 July 2022: Both young peregrines have been screeching. Silver Girl screamed all day on 6 July.

3 July 2022

By late June two of this year’s juvenile Pitt peregrines remained in Oakland. Sometimes they waited for their father Ecco to bring food. Sometimes they left campus to go hunting. Eventually I saw only the adult peregrines at the Cathedral of Learning.

Then on 30 June something changed. Michelle Kienholz saw and heard a noisy juvenile begging loudly. Yesterday morning my husband heard lots of peregrine begging from St. Paul’s Cathedral steeple.

Cathedral of Learning in the distance beyond St. Paul’s Cathedral steeples (photo by Kate St. John)

By 4:30pm the falconcam showed that Yellow Girl had come home for a handout and Ecco was having none of it.

Here’s an edited sequence of events. I have spared you 8 minutes of screeching.

Ecco is letting Yellow Girl know that it’s time to fend for herself.

(peregrine photo and video from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh; St. Paul’s steeple and Cathedral of Learning photo by Kate St. John)

Catnip, Fleabane, Mullein and More

Phenology, Plants & Fungi
Catnip in bloom, Duck Hollow, 28 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)

2 July 2022

Seen this week at Duck Hollow, listed in photo order:

  • Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is in bloom (at top). No cats were present but plenty of dogs walked by. The Duck Hollow trail is popular with dog-walking services.
  • Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is 5-6 feet tall now with a spike of yellow flowers.
  • Moth mullein (Verbascum blattaria) is a much more delicate plant than common mullein.
  • Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) cast petal-shadows on its disks as it opened in the morning sun.
  • Leaf miners are active now, making squiggles inside the leaves. (I don’t know the identity of the leaves pictured below.)
  • Teasel (Dipsacus sp.) hasn’t bloomed yet but it is getting close.
Common mullein in bloom, Duck Hollow, 28 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Moth mullein, Duck Hollow, 28 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Fleabane opening in morning sun, Duck Hollow, 28 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Teasel not quite blooming yet, Duck Hollow, 28 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)

I heard ravens calling in the distance while I took these pictures. Woo hoo!

(photos by Kate St. John)

Weevil Not Evil

Insects
Yellow poplar weevil on my window, 24 June 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)

30 June 2022

It’s that time of year again when yellow poplar weevils come out en masse for their courtship flight. I had a hint that they’d “bloomed” when I saw one on my window on 24 June. Today there are more.

This week they were clearly present when I walked through Schenley Park. I brushed off one that landed on my shirt while I watched northern rough-winged swallows wheeling overhead. Were the swallows eating flying weevils or something else?

Billbug on black locust, Schenley Park, 8 June 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yellow poplar weevil on black locust, Schenley Park, 8 June 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

Yellow poplar weevils (Odontopus calceatus) are harmless to humans but can show up in unexpected places. When I got home I sat down to eat lunch and a weevil jumped off my shoulder and landed near my salad. Dang! I smashed it before I realized I could have taken a closeup photo.

This weevil is not evil but is certainly annoying. Learn more about its lifestyle and what it eats in this 2018 article.

Amaze Your Friends

p.s. Years ago these bugs were misidentified in the newspaper as “billbugs.” Every year I forget their “weevil” name until I look them up in June.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Double Fledge Didn’t Work: Young Eagle Rescued at USS Irvin

Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey
Logo of USS Irvin Bald Eagle Camera

30 June 2022

There was excitement on Sunday 26 June when both eaglets at the USS Irvin bald eagle nest fledged at the same time. The eaglecam showed that when the first bird fledged, it knocked its sibling off the branch. Fortunately the second bird could still be seen on the eaglecam.

By Monday “footage showed multiple failed attempts by the [second] eagle to fly” and expert opinion determined the bird was missing so many key flight feathers that it had to be rescued.

On Monday evening 27 June, a PGC Game Warden and USS employees teamed up to find and rescue the eaglet. See a photo of the rescued eagle and find out how the bird’s sibling helped in Mary Ann Thomas’ Trib Live article: Game warden, U.S. Steel employees rescue bald eagle; bird’s sibling helped rescuers find it.

The article mentions that the eaglet will be unable to fly until next year. That’s because the flight feathers of bald eagles grow on a prescribed schedule rather than immediately upon feather loss.

In their first year of life eaglets grow their original flight feathers while in the nest, then wait until the following year to molt into Basic 1 plumage. The molt begins in the spring of their second calendar year and finishes with the tail feathers in late July–early August. This eaglet will have to wait a year to make its first flight.

(logo from USS Irvin Eaglecam, footage of the Double Fledge embedded from Pix)

Sad News About Red Boy

Peregrines
Red Boy hams it up at the snapshot camera, 6 June 2022 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

28 June 2022

This morning at around 10:30am Red Boy, the juvenile male from this year’s Pitt peregrine nest, was found dead on the runway at the Allegheny County Airport, apparently hit by a plane. Game Warden Doug Bergman called with his band numbers Black/Green 03/BZ and the fact that he still had the red tape on his USFW band that gave him the nickname “Red Boy.”

Red Boy on banding day, 26 May 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)

Red Boy was always inquisitive and ready to go. He was the first to fledge and the first to leave home around 17 June. On the map he flew 6+ miles due south and found a place with plenty of birds that are easy to catch when they fly across the runways.

Red Boy was already on his big adventure. Unfortunately, he had no idea how quickly a plane could overtake him.

Sad as this is it is not unexpected. Young peregrines have a 62.5% mortality rate in their first year of life. Read more at Musings on Peregrine Mortality.

p.s. The lack of news about equipment damage leads me to believe that the plane was fine after the encounter … but see the comment from Dick Rhoton.

(photos by Kate St. John and from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Dori & Terzo Successful Downtown

Nesting & Courtship, Peregrines
Fledgling on a roof at Third Avenue, 27 June 2022 (photo by Lori Maggio)

28 June 2022

Back in mid-May I thought it unlikely that Pittsburgh’s Downtown peregrines would have a successful nesting season. Terzo was seen with a new unbanded female and Dori, at 16 years old, had low prospects for a healthy youngster. But I was wrong.

Yesterday morning Lori Maggio stopped by Third Avenue to look for peregrine activity and found three: Terzo, Dori, and a loud fledgling. The youngster had fledged to a safe zone across Third Avenue and was whining loudly.

Terzo whined back. (Read the captions for the story.)

Terzo responds to the fledgling. His bands are visible in a zoomed photo, 27 June 2022 (photo by Lori Maggio)
Fledgling whining to his parents at Third Avenue, 27 June 2022 (photo by Lori Maggio)

Terzo picked up the prey and delivered it to the fledgling.

Terzo with food for the fledgling, 27 June 2022 (photo by Lori Maggio)

Meanwhile the female watched from one of the gargoyles on Lawrence Hall. Lori couldn’t get a photo of her bands but I can tell this is Dori. Her face and chest markings match this positive ID photo of Dori.

Dori watches from a gargoyle on Lawrence Hall, 27 June 2022 (photo by Lori Maggio)

On 29 May I saw two nestlings through my scope from Mt. Washington. Yesterday Lori didn’t see a second youngster but it may have been silent.

Here’s hoping the loud fledgling did well on his next flight.

(photos by Lori Maggio)