Hope and Terzo with 2 chicks, 1 May 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
As we watch the chicks at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest, some of you wonder if they’re getting enough to eat. Others think Terzo isn’t hunting because Hope always brings the food to the nest.
THIS IS FIXED! An Internet problem: We couldn’t see the nestcam on the Aviary website. THIS IS FIXED!
Here are some Peregrine FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that explain what’s going on.
Tires in the woods, western PA (photos by Kate St. John)
There are tires in the woods nearly everywhere in western Pennsylvania. Singles, pairs and piles of tires. Tires rolled down the hillsides into the hollows. Tires dumped on top of trash. Tires too heavy to lift, left by the side of the road.
I’d say this is a uniquely Appalachian problem but it happens across the U.S. Dumping tires is illegal but people do it because they think it’s expensive to dispose of them properly. In fact it’s cheap — about $2 per passenger tire in PA — and it’s easy to find a disposal place that’s probably closer than the illegal dump site. Just type in your zip code at the Earth911 website.
Last month I listed outings for the last week of April and included May 1. Here’s a big list for the month of May.
Everyone is welcome to participate in these outings. Click on the links for directions, meeting places, what to bring, and phone numbers for the leaders.
Terzo arrives at 3:02pm; Hope shelters Chick#1 and two eggs (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Yesterday morning we were excited that the first peregrine egg hatched at Pitt and looked forward to a second hatching later in the day.
At around 2:15pm the second egg hatched. Hope manipulated it, killed it, and fed it to the first chick.
This is not normal peregrine behavior.
Viewers were shocked and bewildered. Many of you had questions but I was out of cell range for most of the day, unaware that it happened.
I have never seen this behavior before and don’t know why it occurred. Here’s what we do know: Peregrines’ lives are very different from ours. Using our human yardstick to understand them — anthropomorphizing — really leads us astray.
I asked Art McMorris, the PA Game Commission’s Peregrine Coordinator, who viewed the archived footage and said the chick was alive but might not have been normal. In all his years of dealing with peregrines, Art has never seen this before either.
Hope’s behavior was so unusual that there is no information on it. Many of you speculated about it and asked “Is this why she did it?” In almost every case my answer is “I don’t know.”
A line from The Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot comes to mind: “But there was no information, and so we continued.” The rest of the poem applies, too.
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different … — excerpt from The Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
We are learning a lot this year about unusual peregrine behavior.
And a reminder: If watching the nestcam upsets you, turn it off. Give yourself a rest. I do.
Terzo and Hope with their first nestling of 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Happy news at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest. The first chick has hatched! Welcome to the world, “C1.”
This morning at 6:18 am Hope was restless and pulled one of the eggs away from the other three. In this photo you can see that the egg is cracked. The chick was about to hatch.
Hope pulls the about-to-hatch egg away from the other three (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Soon Hope moved the egg back to the clutch …
Hope moves hatching egg back to the clutch (photo from National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
… and at 6:42am she called to Terzo, “Come see what’s happening.”
Hope calls to Terzo after first chick hatches (photo from National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
Terzo arrived at 6:55am (top photo) to see the chick nestled in the half shell.
Hope left to have breakfast and Terzo settled on the chick and eggs to keep them warm.
By 7:27am Terzo showed the chick completely out of the shell. Notice the two halves of empty shell.
Terzo with first chick and eggshell, 29 April 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
UPDATE AT 4:00PM: I’m sorry that I’ve been out of cell range for the past 5 hours. At around 2:15pm the second egg hatched, Hope killed it and fed it to the first chick. I have never seen this behavior before and do not know enough yet to speculate on why this happened. I’ll publish more news when I have it.
(photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ. of Pittsburgh)
Gray Catbird (photo by Alan Vernon from Wikimedia)
This week gray catbirds (Dumetella carolinensis) came back to Pittsburgh from their winter homes in Central America.
I saw my first one in Schenley Park on Tuesday (April 26) and now I hear them every day, singing from the coverts in my neighborhood. Here’s what they sound like:
“Grey Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis)” from xeno-canto by Antonio Xeira. Genre: Mimidae.
“Covert” means “thicket” but it’s also an ornithological term for feathers that cover the base of the main flight or tail feathers.
Gray catbirds have rust-colored undertail coverts. Read about them in this 2010 bird anatomy lesson: Undertail Coverts.
(photo by Alan Vernon in Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
Black and white warbler, singing (photo by Chuck Tague)
Spring migration is ramping up. Every day there are new birds to see and hear in western Pennsylvania.
What if you hear a really good bird and can’t see it? Should you playback its song on your smartphone to lure it in? Please restrain yourself. Here’s why.
To avoid stressing birds or exposing them to danger, exercise restraint and caution during observation, photography, sound recording, or filming.
Limit the use of recordings and other methods of attracting birds, and never use such methods in heavily birded areas, or for attracting any species that is Threatened, Endangered, or of Special Concern, or is rare in your local area. — American Birding Association Code of Ethics
In other words, our first priority should be the birds’ welfare.
Song playback is like this to a bird: Imagine you’re at home having dinner and someone knocks on your front door. You drop what you’re doing and go answer it. There’s no one there, yet you keep hearing them knock over and over again. Of course this is upsetting. (People stop “answering the door” much sooner than birds do.)
David Sibley, whose app makes playback very easy, compares the proper use of playback to fishing. The most successful technique barely plays the song at all. Read how to do it here.
I once witnessed a clear example of what we should never do.
Prothonotary warbler, singing (photo by Chuck Tague)
In May 2010 I was thrilled to see a beautiful male prothonotary warbler at Magee Marsh boardwalk in Oak Harbor, Ohio. The bird was there all day, every day. He was on territory. He had a nest hole.
One afternoon I stopped for my second view of the warbler and I saw a photographer set his iPod on the boardwalk railing. Then I heard the prothonotary sing four times. Several birders looked around. It took us a while to realize the song came from the iPod.
The crowd at the boardwalk was huge and there were many iPods and smartphones in that crowd. How many times that day! that weekend! that week! was the prothonotary warbler challenged on his own territory by a recorded song?
I wish I’d been brave enough to speak to that photographer. I regret it to this day.
Every morning we awake to birdsong now. All the singers are male … right? Well, not really.
When I took a class on birdsong years ago I learned that female birds don’t sing. This information came from centuries of bird observations made in Europe and North America. Charles Darwin even used it to describe how song evolved in male birds to attract mates and compete for territory.
It’s true that almost all the singing birds in North America are male, but there are some exceptions.
Did you know that female northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) sing and they’re just as good at it as the males?
I was reminded of this last week when a female flew into a tree just over my head and sang a long sustained vibrato even faster than this:
Cardinal couples countersing to synchronize their pair bond. Yesterday in Schenley Park I saw a female sing a phrase several times, then her mate matched it.
So when you hear a cardinal singing, take the time to find the singer. It may be a lady!
We’re still searching for the peregrines who nest in Downtown Pittsburgh. They left the Gulf Tower in March and we know they’re nesting … but where? Two weeks ago I posted this blog asking folks to… Look for Perching Peregrines.
Last Wednesday Diane P. left a comment saying she’d found a pair of falcons nesting in the facade of a building on Fifth Avenue across from Chatham Center. Within a few hours I was Downtown checking the area for peregrines.
From Duquesne University’s campus I saw a small bird of prey perched high on Chatham Center but the light was so poor that I couldn’t identify it. On Fifth Avenue I found this hole in the 1904 building.
Kestrel hole, 1904 building (photo by Kate St. John)
The next morning I stopped by Chatham Center plaza and saw the bird in better light on the same perch. It’s a small falcon, an American kestrel (Falco sparverius).
By luck Diane was out on the plaza, too, so we chatted about her discovery. Suddenly we heard a kestrel calling and both adults swooped into the nest. Then we heard the sounds of baby birds being fed. It’s a family!
Diane was so good at finding these small falcons that I hope she finds the big ones, too. (And I do hope the peregrines leave the kestrels alone!)
