Celebrating My Favorite Bird on National Bird Day

Books & Events, Peregrines
Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning on Banding Day, 17 May 2013 (photo by Peter Bell)

5 January 2024

My Audubon calendar had a surprise for me this morning. Today is National Bird Day, a little-known celebration established in 2002 by BornFreeUSA in coordination with the Avian Welfare Coalition. Since both organizations focus primarily on the well being of captive animals and birds, the celebration has not gained much notice in the birding community. However it’s a great excuse to celebrate my own favorite bird.

The peregrine falcon pictured above is the only wild bird I’ve ever been able to recognize and learn as an individual. Dorothy arrived at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning in 2001 at age 2 and had her first successful nest in 2002, the year that National Bird Day was established.

As I got to know Dorothy I learned about her species and became addicted to peregrines. She also taught me a lot about herself and in retrospect the unique characteristics of her generation, the peregrines that repopulated eastern North America.

Dorothy died eight years ago and still is in my heart, especially as nesting season approaches. Here’s a look back at what a great bird she was. Never captive. Always wild.

A Tribute To Dorothy

Are You Saying Something?

Mammals
Horse in flehmen response to a scent (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 January 2024

Is this horse neighing? Is the lion roaring?

Male lion in flehmen response (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

No. In both cases they have smelled something interesting, perhaps a female in heat, and are breathing through their mouths and opening their airways to take in as much scent as possible into a special olfactory organ called the vomeronasal organ.

They are making a flehmen response. On Throwback Thursday, learn more and see a video in this vintage article:

Funny Face is Flehmen Response

Aurora from Above

Weather & Sky
Aurora borealis (photo from Wikimedia Commons, originally taken by Marcelo Quinan on Flickr CC)

3 January 2024

As I mentioned last month, though winter is the best time of year to see the aurora borealis it is rare if not impossible to see it anywhere but in the far north. The photo at top was taken in Norway while the one below gives a different perspective from an airplane at 36,000 feet above Canada.

Aurora Borealis as seen from an airplace 36,000 ft above Canada, 22 January 2004 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

In both cases the photos were taken inside our atmosphere below the aurora. What if you could see the aurora from above?

On 21 January 2016 NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took photos of the aurora from the International Space Station (ISS) as it traveled over Canada. Here’s what the aurora looks like from above in his series of photos.

Aurora borealis over Canada, seen from ISS on 21 Jan 2016 (photos from Wikimedia Commons)

The ISS also saw the aurora australis, the southern lights near the South Pole, in July 2012.

Aurora australis from ISS, 15 July 2012 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Want to know if there will be an aurora soon and where it will show up? Check here for NOAA’s Aurora Viewline predition for tonight and tomorrow.

Coyote Sends Greetings

Mammals
“The suspicious coyote adds her full throated song to the music of Cleveland’s finest” (photo by oblende via Flickr Creative Commons license)

2 January 2024

Coyotes (Canis latrans) live in Pittsburgh but you might never notice because most of them keep a low profile. In Pennsylvania coyotes are hunted and trapped all year long — and they know it — so they generally avoid humans and operate at night.

Occasionally coyotes howl in Pittsburgh, usually from the woods, but I have yet to hear it. Since they’re larger than their western cousins you probably won’t see an amazing performance like this one in Tucson.

This coyote was sending greetings so important that he had to climb up high to say them.

Counting Crows: 15,000

Books & Events, Crows & Ravens
Crows coming in to roost at Robinson Ext & Vera, 31 Dec 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

31 December 2023

Success! Last night, Saturday 30 December, our team counted 15,000 crows at their roost on Robinson Ext and Brackenridge Streets during the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count (CBC). It was a big challenge compared to last year when we could stand in one place and count 20,000 flying by in the distance. This year we had to chase them for two hours, texting each other with updates, until the crows finally picked a spot. Did they split the roost? In darkness and rain we think we were unable to see another 5,000 but we can’t count what we can’t see. So the official count is 15,000.

Carol Steytler, Sue Faust and I did a dry run on Friday night. That evening the western stream flew over the Allegheny River to stage at Cliff Street before moving on. My brief video shows how impossible it is to count them before they settle.

Crows staging on 29 Dec 2023 (video by Kate St. John)

That night we followed about half the flock to Wylie Avenue near Lawson, but where did the rest of them go? Fortunately it was just a dry run before Count Day.

On Saturday night Claire Staples joined us for the CBC and we split up to find the crows. Sue waited for them on Arcena Street but not a single crow came to the bluff above Bigelow. Carol found them staging near Wylie and Herron but when Claire and I caught up we could tell the crows were going to leave; there are no streetlights on that patch of woods.

By 5:30pm the crows had picked a roost and we gathered near Vera Street to watch them swirl overhead in the rain. We counted them in trees and on the Sports Dome but could not see how many were on nearby roofs and other places out of sight, so the official count is 15,000. Maybe next year we’ll count all of them.

Thank you to the intrepid team — Carol Steytler, Sue Faust and Claire Staples — who braved rain, cold, and darkness to count the crows. We were up for the challenge and we found almost all of them. And thanks to my readers for your tips and sightings. We’re done now until next year. 🙂

And we’ve learned a valuable lesson: If you want to count crows, don’t expect them to fly the same route or roost in the same place every night during the CBC.

(photo and video by Kate St. John)

Temperature Makes a Difference

Plants & Fungi
Yellow-rumped warbler in myrtle at the coast (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

30 December 2023

Over the past week my husband and I traveled to Virginia to visit family, the same trip we made a year ago just as a massive cold front swept across the eastern US. Last year temperatures dipped to 13 degrees F in Virginia. This year the weather was mild in the upper 40s to low 60s. The temperature made a difference in how many birds I saw on the trip. Believe it or not there were fewer birds in mild weather!

For instance, on both trips I visited Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. In 2022 it was well below freezing yet I saw 29 species including thousands of waterfowl: Canada geese, 250-300 tundra swans, gadwall, wigeons, black ducks, ring-necked ducks, scaup, ruddy ducks, and coots (see checklist here).

This year I saw only 18 species and the water birds were reduced to literally a handful each of Canada geese (heard), tundra swans (heard), gadwall and pied-billed grebes (checklist here). Meanwhile the most abundant species was 40-50+ yellow-rumped warblers feasting on myrtle berries.

Abundant myrtle berries attracted yellow-rumped warblers at Back Bay NWR (photo by Kate St. John)

This year’s El Niño is has certainly affected the birds. On the East Coast it is warm enough that many don’t have to come south to find food.

Seasonal temperature and precipitation outlooks for the U.S., Dec 2023-Feb 2024 (maps from NOAA)

Will temperature make a difference during today’s Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count? I suspect precipitation will have a larger affect. There’s a 90% chance of snow showers and then rain. 🙁

The Sea of Stars

Water and Shore
Image embedded from VisitMaldives.com photo by Mohamed Ahsan

29 December 2023

Yesterday I wrote about seeing stars in the sky. Today we’ll see stars in the sea in this video at Vaadhoo Island, Maldives.

video embedded from Wonder World on YouTube

You don’t have to travel as far as the Maldives to see bioluminescent waves but it is not a common phenomena and few places are as reliable as this one.

Read more about the Sea of Stars at VisitMaldives.com.

(credits are in the captions)

If Only We Could See The Stars

Weather & Sky
How light pollution affects the dark night skies (image from Wikimedia Commons)

28 December 2023

We usually take for granted that even on a clear night there aren’t many stars to see. When the news reminds us to watch for an astronomical event such as the Geminid meteor shower on 13 December, we realize that most of us have to drive somewhere to find a dark sky. Even rural skies show fewer stars than a dark sky site, and Dark Sky locations are getting harder to find as light pollution proliferates.

Earth City Lights, 1994-1995 (image from Wikimedia Commons)

There’s a universe above us that most of us cannot see. Learn more in this vintage article:

We Cannot See The Stars

Only 3 Days To Find the Crows!

Books & Events, Crows & Ravens
American crow closeup (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

27 December 2023

This Saturday, 30 December, is Pittsburgh’s annual Christmas Bird Count when we confirm the number of crows that come to town for the winter. Usually the count is 20,000 so after they skunked me three years ago (I counted only 220!) it’s been my mission to find the roost and count them all.

Last week I was confident that, thanks to you, we had found the crows. Carol Steytler saw them roosting near Heinz Lofts on 16 December so I went down there on the 19th — before I left town for the holiday — and saw more than 10,000 streaming in from Troy Hill to Heinz Lofts. I thought the Crow Count was going to be easy.

Hah! The crows have something else in mind.

Crows roosting at Allegheny River near Heinz Lofts, 7 Feb 2021, 7:40pm (photo by Kate St. John)

On Sunday 24 December Carol told me the crows were GONE! They weren’t near Heinz Lofts and when she drove around yesterday from 5-7pm she couldn’t find them anywhere!

Are we going to let 20,000 crows avoid the Count? No!

If you see a steady stream of crows at dusk please tell me where you saw them and where they were going.

Crows streaming past near Troy Hill (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

If you see crows at sunset making a racket in the trees, please tell me where they were!

There are only 3 days left until Pittsburgh’s Christmas Bird Count and (yikes!) I’m still out of town. Please help me find the crows!