Not only did coffee make the concrete 30% stronger but the already used grounds did not end up in a landfill, a significant savings since the world’s coffee drinkers create 10 billion kg (11 million tons!) of spent coffee every year.
If the idea catches on, coffee waste will reduce the need for sand in concrete …
Will piles of sand at concrete plants be replaced by piles of biochar coffee? Imagine what it would smell like at a cement plant, like this one along the Parkway East near Uptown, satellite view below.
Large carpenter bee sips from a passionflower, Phipps, 20 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
23 September 2023
Last Wednesday I watched an enormous carpenter bee sipping from passionflowers at Phipps Conservatory’s outdoor garden.
The passionflower’s nectar treat is directly below its overhanging anthers and stigmas. On Wednesday the anthers were in position to touch the hairy spot on the bee’s back. The stigmas were too high to touch the bee.
The pollination parts of a passionflower. An anther touches a bee, 20 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Later, the anthers and stigmas will trade positions. The anthers will pull back. The stigmas that collect pollen for the ovary will touch the bee.
Two juvenile Cooper’s hawks in Frick Park, 14 July 2022 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
22 September 2023
Every year young Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) fledge in June/July and learn to hunt in July/August. As soon as they’re self sufficient they disperse, and then they start to migrate.
Cooper’s hawks eat birds for a living so they migrate with their prey. Their peak migration continues now through mid October at the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch.
How did they get to this point? Let’s take a look back to August as some young Cooper’s hawks perfect their hunting techniques in New Jersey. It involves a lot of jumping.
In Pittsburgh the winter solstice invariably arrives on 21 December, but the 21st never works for the autumnal equinox.
As an astronomical event, the equinox arrives everywhere on Earth at exactly the same moment but is expressed as different dates and times because of longitude and time zones. Hawaii’s equinox is on the 22nd while Paris and Johannesburg have the same date and time because of time zones.
Universal Time
23 Sep, 6:50AM UTC
Pittsburgh
23 Sep, 2:50AM EDT
Honolulu, HI
22 Sep, 8:49PM HST
Tokyo
23 Sep 22, 3:49PM JST
Paris
23 Sep, 8:49AM CET
Johannesburg, SA
23 Sep, 8:49AM SAST
For most of the Earth this month’s equinox will occur on the 23rd. When it does everyone’s sunset will be exactly west, just like the photo above.
Sticky tape put on trees by an unknown Frick Park visitor, 19 Sept 2023 (photo by Michelle Kienholz)
20 September 2023
Six years ago, when spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) were a new plague in North America, no one knew if they would destroy Pennsylvania’s forests but scientists assumed the worst and warned accordingly. However, they also conducted long term studies of spotted lanternflies’ effect on Pennsylvania trees and agriculture. For PA trees there is happy news: Spotted lanternflies are not a danger to Pennsylvania forests. There’s no need to protect our trees from lanternflies because they are not hurting them.
Penn State subjected four species of trees to four years of spotted lanternfly super-infestation by surrounding the trees with mesh nets that kept hordes of lanternflies inside. Silver maple, weeping willow, and river birch were barely phased by the bugs and did quite well in the third year of the study. The bugs’ host plant, the invasive tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), did not grow during the plague.
“If you have a vineyard and you have lanternflies on your grape vines, you should be very worried because they can kill grape vines,” Hoover said. “But if you’re a homeowner and you have large trees on your property and you have lanternflies on them, I don’t think you should worry about it.”
Yesterday an unknown visitor to Frick Park put sticky tape on some trees. Here’s what one section killed: 12 spotted lanternflies, 25+ pollinators (yellowjackets), 70 warbler-food insects (tiny flying insects). More beneficial insects died than lanternflies. Needless to say the tape has already been removed. (Click here to see how sticky tape kills birds!)
Sticky tape deaths in Frick Park, 19 Sep 2023 (photo by Michelle Kienholz)
Sticky tape is bad and pointless. If you put it up, remove it.
Magnolia warbler in fall, Sept 2018 (photo by Dave Brooke)
19 September 2023
Right now warbler migration is at its autumn peak in southwestern Pennsylvania but, as usual, the birds are hard to identify. Their fall plumage is dull and confusing, they move fast so we never get a good look at them, and we don’t get much practice because many of them are here only in September. And then they’re gone.
This year it dawned on me that the magnolia warbler (Setophaga magnolia) is super-easy to identify if all you see is its butt, as shown at top and below.
Note that the magnolia warbler is the only warbler with a white belly, white undertail coverts, white undertail and a large black straight-edged tip on the tail. It looks as if this warbler was dipped tail first in black paint.
I highly recommend the 560-page The Warbler Guide by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle which I use at home after noting the warbler’s key features in the field. In my opinion the book is indispensable if you take photographs.
The view from Hays Woods, September 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Here’s PPC’s description:
Come check out Pittsburgh’s newest city park for an exclusive hike with Bird Lab Avian Ecologist, Nick Liadis, and Jared Belsky, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy Ecological Restoration Coordinator, Hays Woods.
Explore Hays Woods like never before, while learning about native plants and trees and how regional birds interact within this dense urban forest. This adventure will incorporate a mixture of species identification and bird watching. Fall migration is the best time to catch sight and sound of the migrating birds overhead.
Hike leaders are Jared Belsky of Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy who manages PPC projects on site (photo on left) and Nick Liadis of Bird Lab who bands birds at Hays during spring and fall migration (photo on right). Both have extensive knowledge of Hays Woods from hands on experience.
p.s. The Hays Woods – Agnew Rd Trailhead has a small gravel parking lot. If this hike is well attended you may have to park on the street. GPS = 40.39852,-79.96324
(photo of Jared Belsky by Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, all other photos by Kate St. John)
Sooty and white mold grow on honeydew deposited by spotted lanternflies feeding on Ailanthus, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
17 September 2023
The onslaught of invasive spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) continues in Pittsburgh until the first truly cold weather gives us a couple of frosts. This month the bugs are congregating on vertical objects, feeding on Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), and laying eggs.
On Friday in Schenley Park the sun broke sideways through the trees to a large Ailanthus along the Lower Trail coated in lanternflies, sooty mold, and white mold (highlighted in yellow). The lanternflies were actively sucking on the tree’s sap.
White mold on Ailanthus beneath the spotted lanternfly feeding zone, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Sunlight illuminated small bugs flying horizontally near the tree and something falling that looked like rain.
Spotted lanternfly honeydew drops like rain, Schenley Park, 15 Sep 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Uh oh! That rain is watery spotted lanternfly poop called “honeydew.” The honeydew is sugary and the air actually smelled sweet.
So stand back when you see a tree coated in sooty mold and spotted lanternflies. You won’t want to get rained on.
Ecco watches while Carla preens, 15 Sep 2023, 3:54pm
16 September 2023
Yesterday Ecco and Carla spent lots of time hanging out together at the Pitt peregrine nest. The snapshot camera’s motion detector captured their activity.
Beginning at 3:50pm the pair spent 45 minutes together, bowing, preening, and watching. When Ecco left, Carla continued on the perch for another half hour, then stretched and departed at 5:00pm.
Two minutes later Ecco landed at the exact same spot on the perch. Because female peregrines are larger than males, the switch from Carla to Ecco made it look as if the bird shrank.
Ecco preened for more than an hour, then stretched and vaulted up to leave at 6:13pm. All told, the peregrines were present on camera for nearly 2.5 hours.
This slideshow shows 144 minutes of their interactions in only 1 minute and 15 seconds. If you miss the captions on the first pass, don’t worry, the slideshow repeats.
For nearly 30 years ultralights have been used to establish safe migration routes for endangered geese and cranes as they are reintroduced to the wild.
In 1993 ultralight pioneer Bill Lishman, along with Joe Duff, conducted the first ever human-led bird migration by guiding a small flock of young Canada geese from Ontario to Virginia. His experiment proved that young geese imprinted on an ultralight will follow the aircraft and learn the migration route. After leading the birds just once, in one direction, the geese knew the route and returned on their own in the spring.
Christian “Birdman” Moullec was the first to do it in Europe when he guided lesser white-fronted geese (Anser erythropus) from their future breeding grounds in Sweden to new wintering grounds in Germany in 1999. He has since led red-breasted geese (Branta ruficollis) and many other species.
