Working Birds: The Original Drone

September 4, 2023Doves & ChickensKate St. John

Homing pigeon in Germany (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

4 September 2023, Labor Day

On Labor Day, when I honor working birds, homing pigeons come to mind because they’re willing to try almost anything their keepers invent.

For centuries homing pigeons made themselves extremely useful by carrying messages, especially during wartime. The messages were carried in a pack strapped to the bird’s chest or inserted in a message tube strapped to the bird’s leg.

Homing pigeon with message tube on its leg (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Then in 1907, German apothecary Julius Neubronner, who used pigeons to deliver medications, decided to try aerial pigeon photography. He designed an aluminum breast harness and a lightweight time-delayed miniature camera to fit on a homing pigeon. It worked so well with his own pigeons that he applied for a German patent.

Homing pigeon carrying a camera, 1926 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

But, as Wikipedia explains, the patent office rejected his claim until he sent them pigeon-made aerial photos. They granted his patent in December 1908.

Aerial photos taken by homing pigeons (photo by Wikimedia Commons)

Pigeon photography held great promise for World War I but was overshadowed by the invention of portable dovecoats to improve messaging and airplanes from which humans could do their own surveillance. So the fleets of camera-carrying pigeons just didn’t take off.

Three homing pigeons with cameras (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

After World War II the CIA briefly flirted with the idea of pigeon photography but it, too, went nowhere. Now they have drones.

Recreational drone, July 2016 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

I wonder if people realize that pigeons were the original drones.

Read more about Pigeon photography at Wikipedia. Happy Labor Day.

(photos from Wikimedia; click on the captions to see the originals)

Flamingos Have Been Popping Up All Over

September 3, 2023Bird Behavior, Water and Shore, Weather & SkyKate St. John

3 September 2023

Except for a few rare sightings in Florida, flamingos seen in the U.S. are not from the wild, they’re escapees from a zoo. Then suddenly last week, after Hurricane Idalia, flamingos have been popping up all over.

At top, 16 flamingos visited Fred Howard County Park near Tarpon Springs, FL. Below, 6 flamingos stopped by St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge, 30 miles south of Tallahassee.

The groups have often been a mix of pink adults and gray youngsters.

As of Saturday evening the totals were:

100+ in Florida
11 at Pea Island, North Carolina
2 in South Carolina
2 in Virginia
3 in Alabama
5 in Tennessee
UPDATE on 4 Sep 2023: 1 in Kentucky
and 2 in OHIO! at Caesar Creek State Park. These were seen for only a day and then gone.
UPDATE on 7 Sept 2023: 2 flamingos in Franklin County, PA pictured below: First reported on eBird on 7 Sept but apparently present for 2 days prior as well.

American flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) are native to the northern shore of South America, the Caribbean islands, Cuba, and the Yucatan in Mexico. Hurricane Idalia plowed through a few of those locations.

Range map of American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) from Wikipedia

This WKRG video on 27 August shows Hurricane Idalia gaining strength as it spans the Caribbean, overlaying part of the Yucatan and all of Cuba. The flamingos would have felt it coming and flown north and northeast to get out of its way. Notice the lower speed winds (shades of green) on the edge of the weather map. The green wind track is where most of the flamingos have been found.

video from WKRG News on YouTube

Considering the storm track, the flamingos are probably from Cuba and the Yucatan including at least one banded bird.

Given all the discussion about the flamingos now appearing all over Florida (and farther north), this eBird list from Amy Grimm is especially relevant. This afternoon, Grimm documented 8 flamingos at Marathon, in the Florida Keys, and noted that “One has large yellow band on the right leg code DXCL, small silver band on left leg.” Do the bands mean it’s escaped from captivity? No. This combination — yellow PVC band on one leg with 4-letter code in black letters, ordinary band on other leg — has been used for years in the ongoing project to band American Flamingos in the big colony at Rio Lagartos, on the north coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
— Kenn Kaufman at ABA Rare Bird Alert Facebook Group

Flamingo sightings will end as the birds head home. For now, enjoy them in videos.

video from Tampa Bay Times on YouTube

video embedded from @10TampaBay on YouTube

(credits are in the captions)

Insect Jamboree

September 2, 2023InsectsKate St. John

Leaf-footed bug at Powdermill Nature Center, 19 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

2 September 2023

Insect activity is pretty intense in late August and September as they run out of time to eat and mate before cold weather (usually) kills them.

While vegetarian insects, such as the leaf-footed bug above (Coreidae family), munch on fruits, nuts, plants and trees, the carnivores dine on insects. Carnivores include the migrating warblers who pick tiny bugs off of leaves and branches.

Every day predatory spiders weave a gauzy web on top of these Japanese yews in Shadyside, hoping for an unsuspecting insect.

Gauzy spider webs on Japanese yew, Shadyside Pittsburgh, 14 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Assassin bugs (Reduviidae family, nymph below) eat many insects in their lifetime.

Assassin bug nymph, Powdermill Nature Center, 19 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

And if you want to red about a really creepy predator, check out this #bioPGH blog about The Super Spooky Sting of the great black wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus)

Meanwhile the vegetarian insectss are distracted by mating, as seen in this pair of Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica).

Japanese beetles mating while perched on tick trefoil amidst spreading dogbane, Sewickley Heights Park, 29 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Two flies were locked in some sort of embrace on my car yesterday morning at Schenley Park. Considering the size difference I wonder if this wasn’t fratricide.

Flies doing something on my car, maybe mating, Schenley Park, 1 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

And in spotted lanternfly Lycorma delicatula) news: Yes the lanternflies are still quite present and they haven’t even begun to lay eggs yet. That’ll happen this month and next.

This week I found a milestone on the honeydew mold front: In Schenley Park on Friday I saw the white mold on top of sooty mold.

The whiteness in this photo appears to be the sun glinting off the Ailanthus tree trunk but in fact it’s white mold growing on top of sooty mold (black) on top of spotted lanternfly honeydew.

White mold on top of sooty mold on spotted lanternfly honeydew on an Ailanthus tree, Schenley Park, 1 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Ailanthus, “Tree of heaven,” is the host tree of the spotted lanternfly and they sure do love this one. Looking up, the tree is infested with lanternflies.

Spotted lanternflies coating an Ailanthus tree, Schenley Park, 1 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Expect more insect activity in the week ahead as bright sun and hot temperatures warm them up.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind

September 1, 2023Bird Behavior, PeregrinesKate St. John

Ecco and Carla bow at the nest, 31 August 2023, 4:17pm (photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)

1 September 2023

The National Aviary’s streaming camera is off for the season so the Pitt peregrines are virtually out of sight, but they are not off my mind. Every day I check the Cathedral of Learning’s ledges to see where they’re perched and I look at the snapshot camera in case they’ve been to the nest.

Activity at the nest picked up this week because fall is coming and migration is underway. The length of day is similar to spring and they’re taking an interest in songbird migration as prey flies overhead at night.

Ecco and Carla bowed at the nest three times yesterday, including an extended bowing session, to strengthen their pair bond and their claim on the nest.

All of Pitt’s resident peregrines(*) stay home for the winter and I expect Ecco and Carla to do the same. They don’t need to migrate because there’s plenty of food in the winter (pigeons and starlings) and their “cliff” is too valuable to lose by vacating it for six months.

So I’m still watching. The Pitt peregrines may be out of sight but they are not out of my mind.

(*) There’s a lot of history that allows me to say that. Peregrines have lived at the Cathedral of Learning for 22 years, spanning 8 adult birds.

(photos from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)

Sleeping On Migration

August 31, 2023Bird Behavior, MigrationKate St. John

Sparrow asleep in New Mexico (photo by Larry Lamsa via Flickr Creative Commons license)

31 August 2023

Migration is exhausting work and since warblers migrate at night, they must rest and refuel during the day. Food and good cover are both essential at their rest stops. Sleeping is a dangerous activity where predators lurk.

A study published in Current Biology, August 2019, revealed one way that migrating warblers manage these dangers and demands: They adjust their sleep postures depending on their physical condition and physiological needs. Plump, well-muscled birds tend to sleep with their heads held upright, while scrawnier warblers tuck their heads into their feathers, a posture that makes them more vulnerable to predation but helps them conserve their much needed energy.
— New York Times: Some Migratory Birds Sleep Better Than Others, August 2019

Fit warblers can afford to be vigilant. They puff up and sleep in a watchful posture, sometimes out in the open. This makes them ready to escape at a moment’s notice.

Sardinian warbler asleep on a branch (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Exhausted warblers hide in thickets and tuck their heads under their wings. This provides much needed rest and protects against heat loss but makes them vulnerable to predators. Interestingly, these same birds sleep less than those in good condition because they have to spend more time foraging.

Bird sleeping with head tucked under wing (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Some long distance migrants, such as the ocean-going great frigatebird, can sleep in flight.

Great frigatebird in flight (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

A 2016 study equipped great frigatebirds (Fregata minor) with EEG equipment and proved that they sleep while flying though they get less sleep in the air than on land. Read more in this vintage article.

Asleep In Flight

It would be nice to safely sleep while doing other things. Yawn! I’m ready right now.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, see links in the captions)

The Calm Before The Crows

August 30, 2023Crows & Ravens, VocalizationsKate St. John

Fish crows at Red Hook, NY (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

30 August 2023

In August in the East End of Pittsburgh we get a taste of November dusk. It isn’t the weather or the clouds or the time of sunset. It’s a flock of more than 100 crows, a hint of the thousands to come this fall, that gather on rooftops along Neville Street before flying west to roost.

This year in early August the crows were absolutely silent but as the month progressed a few spoke out, telling me they were in a mixed flock of American and fish crows. American crows (Corvus brachyrhyncos) say “Caw.” Fish crows say a nasal “Uh-oh” (Corvus ossifragus). It’s the only reliable way to tell them apart.

American crow: “Caw Caw Caw.”

Fish Crow: Nasal “Uh oh”

video by Sayre Nature HD on YouTube

I wanted to count by species but the crows remained silent and unidentifiable through most of the month. I tried to tell them apart by sight but my focus on appearance made it impossible to count. So I stop trying. My August eBird checklists place all of them as “American crows” with an X for “Fish crows present.”

Then suddenly last Saturday they were all “talking” and about three quarters of them were fish crows. The flock continued on Sunday evening but I was too busy to count. I shouldn’t have assumed they’d be here on Monday. They were gone and they haven’t been back.

The big flocks will arrive in late October, comprised of 90+% American crows.

For now we’re in the Calm Before The Crows.

p.s. eBird’s Fish Crow Weekly Abundance map shows a dot in Pittsburgh in the month of August … and then it’s gone. Watch the animation here.

(credits are in the captions)

Olive-Sided Flycatchers Stop to Refuel

August 29, 2023MigrationKate St. John

Olive-sided flycatcher (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

29 August 2023

Olive-sided flycatchers (Contopus cooperi) are rare birds in Pittsburgh. Not only have they declined 78% since 1970, but they are only present on migration and then just one or two per season. When three individuals were found on the same day, Friday 25 August, in Allegheny County it was rare indeed. These three were not the same bird:

Sewickley Heights Borough Park at 8:20am, seen recently on Monday 28 Aug
Hartwood Acres, Saxonburg Fields at 10:50am
Homewood Cemetery at noon

Though olive-sided flycatchers nest from Alaska to Newfoundland and southward into the Cascades and Rockies, not much is known of their migration routes. In the fall the eastern birds generally flow westward within Canada, then hang a left at Minnesota and migrate through the Great Plains and eastern Rockies. You can see their relative abundance from the 3rd week of August through the 3rd week of October in this slide show.

Olive-sided flycatcher weekly relative abundance from eBird Status and Trends

Alaska’s breeding olive-sided flycatchers are declining rapidly and have one of the longest migrations of any flycatcher — from Alaska to Peru. Migratory stopover sites are very important for their survival but nobody knew where they went so a study team, headed by Julie C. Hagelin, decided to track the birds’ migration by catching them in mist nets and attaching geolocator backpacks.

What they discovered when the birds returned is that Alaskan breeders fan out across the Rockies on their way south, some as far east as Texas, before they head through Mexico to South America. They also found 13 important stopover sites that are critical to the birds’ survival on migration. Their favorite spots are slightly different in Central America in fall versus spring. Two of the 13 sites are in the U.S. Cascade Mountains. All the sites are on these maps.

(illustration from DeGruyter: Revealing migratory path, important stopovers
and non-breeding areas of a boreal songbird in
steep decline)

Pittsburgh never figures heavily in the olive-sided flycatcher’s travel agenda though this year we seemed to be an attractive stopover. Our birds probably come from breeding sites in eastern Canada.

Are our olive-sided flycatchers stopping at the same places in Central America as the Alaskan group? We won’t know until some runs a similar study in eastern Canada.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons, abundance maps from eBird, stopover maps from DeGruyter; origin links are in the captions)

Yesterday at Schenley Park on 8/27

August 28, 2023Books & Events, Insects, Plants & FungiKate St. John

Schenley Park outing, 27 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

28 August 2023

Yesterday turned into a nice day, but when eight of us met at Schenley Park at 8:30am the temperature was cool with low clouds and the sky was blank gray. Normally the birds would have slept in but the migrants were hungry. We found 22 species.

Best Bird is hard to choose. Was it the belted kingfisher that hunted over Panther Hollow Lake? The ruby-throated hummingbirds that floated among the trees? Or the warblers — Blackburnian, magnolia and chestnut-sided?

Between birds the bugs took center stage. Milkweed bugs swarmed on swamp milkweed pods …

Milkweed bugs on swamp milkweed seed pods, Schenley, 27 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

… and spotted lanternflies sipped on the Ailanthus trees that inspired my blog about sooty mold on honeydew. I was curious: Did the rain wash away the sooty mold? No.

Spotted lanternfly honeydew below an Ailanthus tree is black with sooty mold, Schenley Park, 27 Aug 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Fourteen Canada geese flew over to join the 70 already grazing on Flagstaff Hill. Geese were absent from Flagstaff Hill this summer while they molted their wings feathers and did not return in large numbers until early August.

Here’s our eBird checklist: Schenley Park, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Aug 27, 2022 8:30A – 10:30A

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 14
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) (Columba livia (Feral Pigeon)) 2
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 9
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) 2
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 2
Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) 5
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) 2
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 5
Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) 8
Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) 7
White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) 2
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 3
Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) 1
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 4
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) 3
Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) 15
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 1
Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) 3
Blackburnian Warbler (Setophaga fusca) 2
Chestnut-sided Warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica) 2
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 6

The next outing will be 24 September at 8:30a in Schenley Park at Bartlett Playground.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Why Leaves Turn Black Under Tree of Heaven

August 27, 2023Insects, Spotted Lanternflies, TreesKate St. John

Spotted lanternfly honeydew below ailanthus tree turns black with sooty mold, Schenley, 25 Aug 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

27 August 2023

In Schenley Park’s Panther Hollow there are only a handful of Ailanthus altissima trees (Tree of Heaven) which I rarely paid attention to until recently. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the plants and ground beneath those trees were wet, though it had not rained. This week the leaves and ground are black. Both phenomena are a by-product of the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) invasion.

Spotted lanternflies on a tree trunk, one egg mass below them (photo by Emelie Swackhamer, Penn State University, Bugwood.org)

Spotted lanternflies (Lycorma delicatula) are sucking insects that pierce the bark of their host plant, Ailanthus, and sip the sugary phloem that travels from the leaves to the rest of the plant. (Phloem flow is orange in the diagram below.)

Flow of xylem and phloem in plants (image from Wikimedia Commons)

Everything that eats excretes and spotted lanternflies are no exception. Their watery “poop” is called honeydew because it is full of sugar.

video embedded from Bug of the Week on Youtube

If there were only a few lanternflies we would never notice the honeydew but when a large number coat a tree the honeydew is hard to miss, especially for the consumers of honeydew: bees, wasps, hornets, ants and butterflies.

Butterfly sips on spotted lanternfly honeydew (photo by Rebekah D. Wallace, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org)

European hornet sips lanternfly honeydew (photo by Rebekah D. Wallace, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org)

Sugary honeydew eventually grows sooty mold. Everything with honeydew on it turns black.

Sooty mold is a fungus that appears as a black, sooty growth on leaves, branches and, sometimes, fruits. It is non-parasitic and not particularly harmful to plants apart from being unsightly. Potentially, it could affect the plant’s ability to use the sun for photosynthesis. If you can rub the black growth off with your fingers, it is probably sooty mold. If you cannot rub it off, it is most likely something else.
— Univ of Hawaii Master Gardener Program: FAQ, Sooty mold

Sooty mold on vegetation beneath Ailanthus tree (photo by Richard Gardner, Bugwood.org), yellow circle added

Spotted lanternfly honeydew below ailanthus tree turned black with sooty mold, Schenley, 25 Aug 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

Eventually white mold may cover the honeydew. I haven’t seen this yet but I’m watching for it.

Spotted lanternfly honeydew grows mold (photo by Lawrence Barringer, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bugwood.org)

Will we ever be free of spotted lanternflies? Yes! Check out this blog This, Too, Shall Pass.

(photo credits are in the captions with links to the originals)

Seen This Week: Jewelweed and Lobelia

August 26, 2023Phenology, Plants & FungiKate St. John

Orange jewelweed, Beechwood Nature Center, 16 August 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)

26 August 2023

Well, mostly “this week.” Two photos are older but I didn’t have room for them last time. Here’s a selection spanning 12 days.

Orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), above, does well at ASWP’s Beechwood Nature Center but is nearly extirpated from Schenley Park by deer overbrowse.
Tiny pink and white flowers of willow-herb (Epilobium sp) at West Penn Park on Polish Hill.
Sneezeweed at ASWP’s Beechwood Nature Center. They’ve cultivated many native flowers in the meadows.
Porcelain berry leaves have many shapes, even on the same plant. A photo of four shapes.
Great lobelia at ASWP’s Beechwood Nature Center.
Pink-orange sunrise on 24 August.