Another Female Visitor

August 3, 2016PeregrinesKate St. John

Unbanded young female peregrine visits Cathedral of Learning nest, 2 August 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Yesterday at 5:30pm Carol D. and Megan Briody saw something that the rest of us missed: This unbanded 1-year-old female peregrine bowed with Terzo at the Cathedral of Learning nest.

Apparently Hope was not at home.

Hope was last seen on camera on Sunday evening, July 31 at 6:49pm. No peregrines visited the nest on Monday. Then yesterday afternoon, August 2, Terzo visited alone several times and often looked up. Was he looking for someone?

At 5:29pm Terzo came to the nest and called to someone. Soon an unbanded young female arrived and they bowed for five minutes. Her color is a mix of gray and brown because she’s molting into adult plumage.

Unbanded young female, back to camera, bows with Terzo (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

When the session began Terzo was in the back corner but the male peregrine (almost) always leaves the ledge first so the two had to change places. That maneuver was so clumsy that it looked as if the young female chased Terzo away.

But no, Terzo paused on the nestrail to watch her as she bowed again.

Unbanded young female bows to Terzo (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

He left. And then she left.

Unbanded young female peregrine leaving Cathedral of Learning nest (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Unbanded young female peregrine leaving Cathedral of Learning nest, August 2, 5:32pm (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Female “intruders” at this site have become a routine occurrence. As I said in my reply to Carol D, Hope has probably gone wandering. Her behavior shows she’s a weak owner of the Cathedral of Learning so I won’t be surprised if she’s chased away next spring and replaced by a new female.

p.s. Click on these links to read Carol D’s and Megan‘s reports. (You might have to scroll down.)

(photos from the National Aviary falconcams at Univ of Pittsburgh)

NOTE: You may have noticed that the time stamp on the snapshot camera was about 4 minutes off. I fixed it this morning.

Come to Jennings Prairie, August 6

August 2, 2016Books & Events, Plants & FungiKate St. John

Culvers root and tall sunflowers at Jennings Prairie, August 2014 (photo by Kate St. John)

Every year the Wissahickon Nature Club holds a late summer outing at Jennings Environmental Education Center to enjoy the wide variety of wildflowers that grow on the prairie.

This year the outing will remember our late president Chuck Tague who passed away in June.

Chuck Tague in 2011 (photo by Marianne Atkinson)

What: Wissahickon Nature Club outing led by Dianne Machesney

When: Saturday, August 6, 10:00am

Where: Jennings Environmental Education Center, also called Jennings Prairie, Butler County. Directions From Pittsburgh: 79N to 422E roughly 5.8 miles to 528N. Go 7 miles. Meet in the Jennings Prairie parking lot on the left (west) side of the road.

Bring binoculars, field guides, lunch, beverages and water for the trail. The Prairie is hot and shadeless. Wear a hat and sunscreen.

This walk is open to the public. All are welcome and encouraged to bring a friend.

We’re sure to see Culvers root, tall sunflowers, dense blazing star and purple fringed orchids. And though we’ll focus on flowers, Wissahickon is a “general” nature club so we’ll look at everything that strikes our fancy — flowers, birds, butterflies and all.

Click on the links above to read more about the flowers.

(photo at Jennings by Kate St. John, photo of Chuck Tague in 2011 by Marianne Atkinson)

Rosy Maple Moth

August 1, 2016InsectsKate St. John

1 August 2016

Can you believe the colors on this moth?

Fuzzy pink and yellow, the rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) lives only a week in this beautiful body. Its wing colors are highly variable but its head and back are usually yellow with pink belly, legs and antennae.

Most of its life is spent as a green-striped caterpillar, eating maple leaves, and passing through five instars. When fully mature the caterpillar crawls down the tree and pupates underground.

In western Pennsylvania the moths are above ground from May to September but are easiest to find in late July. The adults don’t eat. They have only one job, to procreate.

The action begins around sunset. The females perch on the undersides of leaves and exude pheromones. The males fly around “sniffing” the air with their big fluffy antennae. Perhaps this division of labor is why the females have insignificant antennae. (My guess is that the moth in Don Weiss’ photo is female.)

If you’re lucky to see the rosy maple moth you’ll be surprised at how small it is — only 1″ long. Click here to see one on the tip of a finger.

I found one once at the Panhandle Trail in Collier Township. Its beauty stopped me in my tracks.

(photo by Don Weiss)

Today’s Walk at Duck Hollow & Nine Mile Run

July 31, 2016Books & EventsKate St. John

Outing to Duck Hollow and Nine Mile Run Trail, 31 July 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)

This morning was foggy and cooler (yay!) when eight of us walked the Lower Nine Mile Run Trail.

We started at Duck Hollow but the river was very high after heavy rains — 0.82 inches on Saturday — and there were few birds there. Our walk along the Nine Mile Run Trail was more productive.

Best Birds were lots of indigo buntings and American goldfinches, a big flock of mourning doves, an American kestrel, and an immature red-tailed hawk. Two male indigo buntings chased near us. So blue!

Best Animal was found by our youngest participant — a land snail. Look at his tiny antennae next to her fingertip.

Tiny land snail, Nine Mile Run Trail, 31 July 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)

Thanks to all for coming and for being such good spotters of birds and wildlife.

My next walk will be August 28 at Schenley Park; meet at the Visitors Center.

(photos by Kate St. John)

A Coralroot With Many Names

July 31, 2016Phenology, Plants & FungiKate St. John

Striped or summer coralroot (photo by Dianne Machesney) — Spotted coralroot blooming, July 2016 (photo by Dianne Machesney)

Now blooming in western Pennsylvania, Corallrhiza maculata is an orchid with many common names:
Spotted coralroot, Speckled coral root, Summer coralroot, Large coralroot, Many-flowered coralroot, and Western coralroot.

The names describe the plant:

Its flower lip is spotted or speckled
It blooms in the summer, July and August
It’s large compared to other coralroots: 8-20 inches high with flowers 1/2 to 3/4 inches long
It has many flowers, up to 40 per plant, and …
It has a wide distribution that includes the U.S. West.

You’ll notice that none of the names include a color. That’s because this leafless plant can be brown, purplish, reddish or yellow. The flower lip is always white but the yellowish plants have no spots.

Wildflowers Of Pennsylvania by Mary Joy Haywood and Phyllis Testal Monk says, “This plant, which goes dormant for years, grows in shady deciduous or coniferous forests, and is found throughout Pennsylvania.”

But finding it is difficult. Like the other coralroots it matches its habitat and to find it you have to go out in July’s heat.

Dianne and Bob Machesney found this one on a very hot day in Butler County.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Summer Pair Bonds

July 30, 2016Bird Behavior, PeregrinesKate St. John

Dori and Louie bow at the Gulf Tower nest before dawn, 30 July 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Gulf Tower)

In late July, the nesting season is over but Pittsburgh’s adult peregrines still see each other every day and sometimes visit the nest to bow and cement their pair bonds.

The Downtown pair, Dori and Louie, are especially early risers. Here they are this morning, Saturday July 30 at 5:53am. In the distance you can see the sky lighting up in the east and the silhouette of the Cathedral of Learning. The sun rose at 6:16am. (They also visited before dawn on July 24.)

The Cathedral of Learning peregrines aren’t such early birds but they’re bowing too. Sometimes Hope is impatient for Terzo to join her at the nest. Below, she shouts, “Come here!” on 25 July at 8am.

Hope shouts, "Come here!" to Terzo, 25 July 2016 (phto from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Hope shouts to Terzo, “Come here!”, 25 July 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Yesterday they bowed twice — at 4:11pm and 6:22pm, July 29. Here’s their second session.

Tezro and Hope bow at the Pitt peregrine nest, 29 July 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Now that the “kids” have grown and flown, the adults spend time with each other.

(photo from the National Aviary falconcam at the Gulf Tower)

Urban Birds Have It All

July 29, 2016Bird Behavior, Musings & News, PeregrinesKate St. John

Peregrine falcon, Dorothy, at the Cathedral of Learning, Feb 2011 (photo by Patricia Szczepanski) — Peregrine falcon, Dorothy, at the Cathedral of Learning in February 2011 (photo by Patricia Szczepanski)

Twenty-five years ago peregrine falcons moved into the City of Pittsburgh. Since then lots of cool raptors have come here, too, including red-tailed hawks, Coopers hawks, turkey vultures and, most recently, bald eagles.

City living provides food and protection from predators but birds face new challenges by living near humans. Jean-Nicolas Audet of McGill University wondered if these challenges put city birds at a disadvantage compared to their country cousins so he designed some tests to answer these questions: Which group is better at problem solving? Which group is more immune to disease? And since both traits require lots of energy, is there a trade-off such that smarter birds have lower immunity?

The Caribbean island of Barbados has both city and country habitats and an endemic species that lives in both places, the Barbados bullfinch (Loxigilla barbadensis). Audet tested the bullfinches and the results were surprising.

“We found that not only were birds from urbanized areas better at innovative problem-solving tasks than bullfinches from rural environments, but that surprisingly urban birds also had a better immunity than rural birds,” says Jean-Nicolas Audet, a Ph.D student in the Department of Biology and first author of the study published in the journal Behavioral Ecology in 2016.

As earth’s human population grows and more habitat is converted to cities, more birds may have to choose the urban environment. If they can adapt, it will be a smart move. As Audet says, “Urban birds have it all.”

Read more about the 2016 study and find links here to “The town bird and the country bird: problem solving and immunocompetence vary with urbanization“.

(photo of Dorothy in 2011 by Patricia Szczepanski. video from McGill University on YouTube)

Drinking Techniques

July 28, 2016Bird Anatomy, Bird BehaviorKate St. John

Italian Sparrows in Bolzano, Italy (photo from Wikimedia Commons) — Sparrows take a sip in Bolzano, Italy (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

On Throw Back Thursday:

Like us birds drink more water in the summer heat. Have you noticed they use different drinking techniques? Some drink with faces down, others tilt their faces up.

These house sparrows appear to be using the face-down technique on a martini. But wait! The glass held ice cream and they’re picking at the remains. So what do they really do?

Find out how birds drink in this vintage article from 2010:

How Birds Drink

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original.)

Alien On The Loose

July 27, 2016Insects, TreesKate St. John

Asian longhorned beetle animation linked from USDA website.

Eeeeewww! It’s an alien!

I’m not kidding. This bug is an alien invader from China that hitchhikes as larvae in wooden packing material. When it gets here it eats trees … lots of them! If it shows up in your neighborhood it has to be eradicated. Otherwise your town is doomed.

The Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky, 1853)), or ALB, is a very large wood-eating beetle native to China and the Korean peninsula. Its white-spotted black body is an inch long with antennae 1.5 to 2 times longer than its body. The antennae are unique, banded black and white.

Because it arrives in infected wood, ALB’s first location in North America is a warehouse. From there it spreads unpredictably, depending on the shipment. It’s been found in suburbs and cities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio and Ontario. Click here for the map as of July 2015.

When the beetle gets loose it’s not picky. Its eats maples, elms, birches, willows, poplars, ashes, hackberries, horsechestnuts, London planetrees … just about anything … but it takes 3-4 years to notice it. The adults are active late spring until fall so July is a good time of year to see its damage or the bug itself.

And this bug is noticeable. Big and showy, even its larvae (at left) are huge.

Larva and adut Asian longhorned beetle (photos by Joe Boggs, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org) — Larva and adult Asian longhorned beetle (photos by Joe Boggs, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org)

If you don’t see the bug you may see its evidence.

This unusual leaf damage is a hallmark of ALB. They eat the ribs of leaves, not the papery part.

Leaf damage from Asian longhorned beetle (photo byPennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources - Forestry , Bugwood.org) — Leaf damage from Asian longhorned beetle (photo by PA DCNR, Forestry at Bugwood.org)

Its entrance and exit holes are unique, too.

The female excavates a niche in the bark and lays her eggs in the hole. Each roughly chewed egg niche is half the size of a dime.

Two egg niches drilled by Asian longhorned beetles (photo by Joe Boggs, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org)

To get out of the tree, the beetle chews a perfect-circle hole as big as a pencil!

Asian longhorned beetle exit holes (photos by Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut and Joe Boggs, Ohio State University, Bugwood.org)

We can stop ALB if he’s confined to cities but if he gets loose in our forests all bets are off.

So if you see an Asian longhorned beetle or its damage, report it. There are some look alikes, but USDA wants us to be better safe than sorry. Call them at 1-866-702-9938 or click here for details.

Report this invader! Don’t let him take hold!

Adult Asian longhorned beetle in someone's hand (photo by Michael Bohne, Bugwood.org) — Adult Asian longhorned beetle in hand (photo by Michael Bohne, Bugwood.org)

Read more about Asian longhorned beetles at USDA’s beetlebusters.info website.

(beetle animation linked from USDA’s website, photos from Bugwood.org)

The Largest Crop in America

July 26, 2016Musings & News, Plants & FungiKate St. John

26 July 2016

If you think about it, a lot of us are farmers. We devote our small acreage to a crop that we fertilize, water and harvest. Then we throw away the harvest or grind it up to re-fertilize the crop. We never eat it and we don’t feed it to our animals.

Grass. In Pennsylvania we devote 2 million acres to lawns. Our next largest crop uses 1.6 million acres. (*See table below.)

The amazing dominance of the lawn is true everywhere in the continental the U.S. except in the Central West — Montana to Nevada to Kansas — where hay, corn and soybeans take up more space. Click here and scroll down for the map.

This isn’t really news. A 2005 study by Cristina Melisi used satellite data to show that lawns are the largest crop in America and the most irrigated by acreage. This is no surprise in Florida and the West where lawns have built-in irrigation systems, but do we irrigate in the Northeast? You bet! The sprinklers are running this month.

Some homeowners break the mold by making meadows or growing vegetables but they often have to explain it to their neighbors. The two-year-old Beacon-Bartlett meadow in Schenley Park has educational signs explaining “This is intentional.”

If I was a gardener I’d convert my tiny backyard lawn but I’m not even a participant. I am, at best, an observer using my Newcomb’s Guide to identify what comes up. I never water, weed or seed it. When it grows, it gets cut. It’s not growing right now.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

(*) UPDATED 22 June 2023: Thank you Mary Ann Pike for providing this link at USDA with which I populated this table with Pennsylvania crop statistics.

Cultivation/ Crop	Acreage in PA
Lawns	2.0 million
Hay and Haylage	1.5 million
Corn	1.2 million
Soybeans	0.6 million
Wheat	0.3 million

This means that lawns are about 30% of Pennsylvania’s cultivated lands.

Outside My Window

A Blog of Birds & Nature with Kate St. John