Have you seen coils or fluttering tags on power lines? Not related to power transmission, these accessories are visual cues that alert birds to the presence of wires.
Bird diverters come in many shapes and have changed over the years as new products come to market and are approved by government agencies. California commissioned a 2008 study to evaluate the orange and fluorescent swinging tag below for use in the Sacramento Valley where hundreds of thousands of waterfowl spend the winter.
Red ball markers make power lines visible to airplane and helicopter pilots and are usually installed near airports and on long lines over rivers and canyons.
I know from personal experience (my career in Information Technology) that there is really no good time to do a server migration and it always takes longer than users want it to. Cornell Lab says they’re migrating 1.6 billion bird observations and that if it goes really well some services may be up late on 20 March.
During the outage eBird will still work on your mobile phone in offline mode. This feature was built into the app long ago because the best birds are far away from cell towers.
The eBird app works in offline mode
So hang tight while Cornell Lab data goes into hiding for two days.
Peregrine falcon at opening to Third Ave nest, 10 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
11 March 2024
Two weeks ago I issued the Southwestern PA Peregrine Challenge — Look for Peregrines in the Next 6 Weeks. The challenge won’t end in early/mid April but it will be a lot harder to find peregrines when they become secretive at their nests. We have 4 weeks before that happens. Meanwhile we have preliminary results. (See news after the map.)
The map below shows peregrine site observations in the past two weeks. The map has a …
Yellow checkmark = a pair was seen,
Yellow line = solo bird (We need to check again)
Yellow circle = NO ONE LOOKED HERE.
Notice the yellow circles. Ohio Valley birders, the challenge is on!
Don’t stop looking where you see a checkmark. There’s a spreadsheet at the end with site names and details.
Peregrine falcon pairs/nests in southwestern PA as of 10 Feb 2024 (map by Kate St. John)
Meanwhile, GOOD JOB!
Downtown Pittsburgh: (photo at top) Yesterday, 10 March 2024, I stopped by the Third Avenue nest site in Downtown Pittsburgh and found a peregrine at home.
Cathedral of Learning, Univ of Pittsburgh: Carla’s new behavior is a good sign. Last weekend she initiated courtship at the nest and Ecco brought her breakfast on camera. Watch the Pitt peregrines online at the National Aviary Falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh.
East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh: Many birders have confirmed the peregrine pair in East Liberty including videos from Adam Knoerzer at Pittsburgh Falconuts Facebook group and this ebird photo by Malcolm Kurtz. I visited on 4 March and found both birds on the steeple. Where and when will they nest?
62nd Street / Highland Park / Aspinwall Bridges (Allegheny County): No photos but on 8 March Justin Kolakowski reported at Six Mile Island, “Watched as a male and female pair chased off a Bald Eagle that was flying upriver, and then perched on the water tower.” (Six Mile Island is between the 62nd and Highland Park Bridges.)
Tarentum Bridge (Allegheny-Westmoreland County line): Dave Brooke, Meredith Cellitti, Dick Nugent and I have all visited the site in the past two weeks. On 7 March I confirmed incubation with the photo below. Hatch is expected in mid-April.
Female peregrine incubating at the Tarentum Bridge nest, 7 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Rt 422 Graff Bridge over the Allegheny River, Kittanning: Hooray for Dave Brooke! He found a peregrine here on 25 February.
Peregrine at the Graff Bridge, 25 Feb 2024 (photo by Dave Brooke)
Westinghouse Bridge: Hooray for Dana Nesiti who found both peregrines at home on 3 March.
Peregrine at Westinghouse Bridge, 3 March 2024 (photo by Dana Nesiti)Second peregrine at Westinghouse Bridge, 3 March 2024 (photo by Dana Nesiti)
Speers/Belle Vernon Bridge: Kudos again to Dana Nesiti for finding a peregrine at the Speers/Belle Vernon bridge on 25 February. This site had not been viewed since May 2023.
Peregrine at Speers/Belle Vernon Bridge, 25 February 2024 (photo by Dana Nesiti)
4 Weeks To Go!
There’s still time to look for peregrines before they get sneaky in early/mid April. Visit one or more of these sites and let me know what you see. Leave a comment with sightings or questions.
Last Thursday I went looking for fairy shrimp(*) at Todd Nature Reserve and found amorous red-spotted newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) instead. The newts attracted my attention because I had never seen adults before, let alone their courtship.
When you think “red-spotted newt” you probably visualize the red eft, the juvenile terrestrial, dry-skinned phase that lasts 1-3 years. Since red-spotted newts can live up to 15 years this phase is not a high percentage of its lifetime, but it is unforgettable.
Red efts wander fearlessly overland because their bright orange color and red spots outlined in black are a warning to predators: “Don’t eat me! You’ll regret it.”
The skin of juveniles and adults secretes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the same neurotoxin found in pufferfish that causes paralysis and death.
According to Wikipedia, TTX “can enter the body of a victim by ingestion, injection, or inhalation, or through abraded skin.” But this hasn’t stopped anyone from holding red-spotted newts. Apparently this activity is just fine.
Poisonings from tetrodotoxin have been almost exclusively associated with the consumption of pufferfish.” … [In North America there is] at least one report of a fatal episode in Oregon when an individual swallowed a rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) on a dare.
The red spots warn predators. They also attract female newts during the breeding season.
Courtship in newts is fascinating. The male will lure and entice the female with his many red spots and wiggling tail, which releases pheromones (specialized chemicals). The male, with his hind legs, will grasp the female just behind her forelimbs and then rub his chin along her snout just prior to external fertilization.
Sunny and 75 degrees at Schenley Park, 4 March 2024 at 4pm (photo by Kate St. John)
9 March 2024
The weather doesn’t know what to do with itself in Pittsburgh. Some days it rains all day (today for instance). Some days it’s hot and sunny. Some days it’s chilly and overcast. This week we saw it all.
On Monday and Tuesday hot sunny weather (74-75°F) encouraged everyone to get outdoors. I waited a while to get a photo, above, without a lot of people in it. Just around the bend the sun was so low in the sky at 4:40pm that it made long shadows.
Long shadows and 75 degrees at Schenley Park, 4 March 2024 at 4pm (photo by Kate St. John)
That beautiful day came after a foggy rainy weekend, seen at Duck Hollow below. The Monongahela River was running high because of all the rain.
Duck Hollow, 2 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
All kinds of critters were busy this week including a striped red ant on a trail in Schenley Park. What ant is this? Can you tell me its name?
Striped red ant, Schenley Park, 4 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Asian jumping worms on the sidewalk on Craig Street, 4 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
On Thursday 7 March I found new leaves of (maybe) corydalis at Todd Nature Reserve.
New corydalis leaves? Todd Nature Reserve, 7 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
And on the way home I stopped at the Tarentum Bridge to check on the peregrines. The male was perched nearby while the female incubated eggs in the nest. This (lousy) digiscope photo shows the female’s wingtips visible in the nest box as she incubates with her tail toward us. This is early for most peregrines in southwestern PA but not for this bird. She’s always early.
Female peregrine incubating at the Tarentum Bridge nest, 7 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
p.s. Don’t forget to turn your clocks AHEAD tonight. (egads! I fixed that awful typo. Thanks, everyone, for pointing it out.)
How does a bird that nests on lily pads protect its tiny chicks when they are too small to jump from pad to pad? I wondered when I saw this bird in Southern Africa.
You would think that mother birds would be the protectors but in the social structure of African jacanas (Actophilornis africanus) the females can have multiple mates and never settle down, so it’s up to the fathers to build the nest, hatch the eggs and protect their kids.
Coltsfoot closing at dusk, Schenley Park, 4 March 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
7 March 2024
Two days ago it was so balmy in Pittsburgh that we wore T-shirts outdoors. The high on Monday 4 March tied the 74°F record, honeysuckle leaves popped out and I found coltsfoot blooming in Schenley Park. The week before was warm, too. Here’s what was blooming Feb 23 to March 1.
The weather is going to turn cold this weekend. Will spring be dealt a setback on Sunday?
In my city neighborhood Saturday night’s predicted low will be 35°F, still above freezing and significantly above normal. The map below shows the low temperature anomaly predicted for this Saturday (Sunday’s map won’t be available until tomorrow). Sunday’s forecast says it will go down to 30°F, barely below freezing.
While visiting southern Africa in January I was impressed at how large the continent is. Africa is huge – so big that the contiguous U.S. can fit inside it three times, as shown above.
For instance, the air distance from top to bottom of Africa, from Tunis, Tunisia to Cape Town, South Africa is …
Last month my friends and I were debating the identity of a woodpecker photographed by Donna Foyle during the Backyard Bird Count. Is this a downy woodpecker or a hairy? The photo’s partial view and low light conditions make it an interesting ID challenge.
First let’s look at two clear photos of both birds, downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) and hairy woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), then talk about the field marks.
The downy woodpecker is 3/4 the length of a hairy woodpecker and weighs less than half. However, this is a tricky field mark when you don’t have both birds next to each other. (*Thank you, Laura, for reminding me in the comments.)
The easiest field mark when you’re looking at a solo bird is the length of the beak relative to length of the head.
Downy vs hairy beak lengths compared to the head length front-to-back (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
The downy’s beak is shorter than his head front-to-back.
The hairy’s beak is the same length as his head front-to-back.
Unfortunately the bird in Donna’s photo seems to have an intermediate bill length. Perhaps it was the angle.
The size of the white patch on the downy woodpecker’s neck is larger than the one on the hairy. David Sibley illustrated this clue to their identity in an article in 2011. The clue is subtle in my comparison photos but the bird in Donna’s photo seems to have a large white patch on its neck. Downy?
Downy vs hairy white face patches compared (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
The fourth clue is on the back of the male’s head but you need a photo to see this.
The red on the back of the male downy’s head is a continuous line.
The red on the back of the hairy’s head is broken by a vertical black patch.
Downy vs hairy red on back of the head compared (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
And finally, downy woodpeckers have dots on their outer tail feathers while hairy woodpeckers have all-white outer tail feathers. Photos of missing white dots were not useful so there is only this illustration.
Egg laying season is coming up soon at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest where Ecco and Carla are courting frequently.
Yesterday they held three long courting sessions that included bowing, ee-chupping, and nest preparation. The ee-chup call sounds different for male and female peregrines. Ecco’s voice is squeaky while Carla’s voice is rough and slightly lower in pitch. She’s the one that makes the “huh” sound. You can hear the difference in this 6-minute video. More information on what they are up to is described below.
To “build” the nest, Carla put her chest against one edge of it and kicked the gravel out with her feet. The nest itself is a bowl in the gravel, called a scrape, for holding eggs so they don’t roll off the cliff. Peregrines don’t use sticks to build their nests.
After digging Carla puttered around on the gravel surface, swallowing small pieces of gravel to aid digestion. Birds add gravel to their gizzards to grind the food. Learn more about How Birds Chew at the link.
