Honeybee on asters, Schenley Park, 28 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
7 October 2023
The best photos from this week have been published already (Yesterday at Hays Woods Bird Banding) so I’m reaching back to late September for a few of things I’ve seen.
Bees of all kinds are attracted to deep purple asters beside the Westinghouse Memorial pond in Schenley Park. The honeybee, above, is hard to see near the flower’s orange center.
At Duck Hollow, yellow jewelweed still has flowers as well as fat seed pods. Try to pull one of the pods from the stem and see what happens.
Yellow jewelweed flower and seeds, Duck Hollow, 26 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 28 September I explored the slag heap flats near Swisshelm Park where (I think) solar arrays will be installed. Because the slag is porous the flats are a dry grass/scrub land where this shrub would have done well except that it’s been over-browsed by too many deer. It looks like bonsai.
Deer damage at the future site of solar flats, NMR Valley, 28 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Deer overpopulation is also evident by the browse line at the edge of the flats.
Browse line at the edge of the future solar flats,NMR Valley, 28 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 26 September at Duck Hollow I encountered an optical illusion where Nine Mile Run empties into the Monongahela River. It looks as if this downed, waterlogged tree is damming the creek and that the water is lower on the downriver side of it. This illusion seems to be caused by the smooth water surface on one side of the log.
Optical illusion: the log is damming Nine Mile Run, 26 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
We found a tiny red centipede crossing the trail at Frick Park on 30 September …
Tiny red centipede, Frick Park, 30 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
… and a puffball mushroom outside the Dog Park.
Puffball mushroom, Frick Park, 30 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 27 September hundreds, if not thousands, of crows gathered at dusk near Neville Street in Shadyside before flying to the roost. I thought this would happen again the next day but they changed their plan and have not come this close again.
Hundreds of crows take off from a roof on Neville Street, 27 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Sometimes sunrise is the most beautiful part of the day.
Sunrise at Neville Street, 28 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
These photos don’t give the impression that it’s been abnormally dry, but precipitation in Pittsburgh is down 6″ for the year. Almost 2″ of that deficit occurred in September. The Fall Color Prediction says our leaf color-change is later than usual.
Fallen leaves in Schenley Park, Nov 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)
6 October 2023
In October we see woolly bear caterpillars (Pyrrharctia isabella) out in the open crossing the trails. Woolly bears overwinter as caterpillars so this month they’re busy looking for the perfect place to spend the winter in leaf litter, under bark, or beneath a fallen log.
Woolly bear, Isabella Tiger Moth caterpillar, 3 Oct 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)
Leaf litter is key winter habitat for a lot of insects including springtails, millipedes, earthworms, butterflies and moths.
Millipede(*) Hays Woods, Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
If you’ve been thinking about “wilding” your yard — even just a little bit — now is a great time to start. Leave the leaves. You don’t have to leave it messy. Here’s advice on what to do.
Leaving the leaves and other plant debris doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your yard to the wilderness. The leaves don’t need to be left exactly where they fall. You can rake them into garden beds, around tree bases, or into other designated areas. Too many leaves can kill grass, but in soil they can suppress weeds, retain moisture, and boost nutrition.
Avoid shredding leaves with a mower. Raking or blowing are alternatives that will keep leaves whole for the best cover and protect the insects and eggs already living there.
If you decide you need to clean up the leaves and debris in spring, make sure you wait until late in the season so as not to destroy all the life you’ve worked to protect.
Take a break this weekend. Don’t bag those leaves! Just push them aside for wildlife.
(photos by Kate St. John and from Wikimedia Commons)
(*) p.s. The millipede was easy to photograph because it was dead, probably the victim of a parasitic fungus that prompts the millipede to climb high on a twig before it dies. I wrote down the name of the fungus when I took the picture but cannot read my writing. Perhaps it’s Anthrophaga myriapodia.
The blackpoll’s transoceanic path was proven in a 2015 study by Bill DeLuca and the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. VCE writes:
Bill DeLuca (Northeast Climate Science Center) and VCE solved this great modern-day avian mystery. Using light-level geolocators attached to Blackpoll Warblers in Vermont and Nova Scotia, DeLuca and colleagues documented the longest distance non-stop overwater flights ever recorded for a migratory songbird. During October, Blackpoll Warblers initiate a ~3-day non-stop transoceanic flight of ~2500 km from the north Atlantic Coast to Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Radar data show migrating songbirds fly at 2,600 to 20,000 feet while making this journey. After a few weeks, they fly onto Columbia or Venezuela where they overwinter. Their spring migration route takes them over Cuba to Florida, where they journey up the eastern US seaboard to reach their breeding grounds in late May.
Of course I wondered if blackpoll warblers sleep in flight during their 3 day transoceanic trip, but we won’t find out any time soon. Blackpolls are way too small to wear the sleep monitoring gear used on the great frigatebird.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, maps from eBird Weekly Abundance; click on the captions to see the originals)
Hermit thrush banded at Bird Lab, Hays Woods, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Jared Miller)
4 October 2023
Joe, Sam and Jared joined me yesterday morning on an adventure to see Bird Lab at Hays Woods. The weather was perfect as we walked more than half a mile to the banding station. There we found Nick Liadis and his assistants about to do the second net-check of the day.
The mist nets that capture songbirds are set up in “alleys” of vegetation where birds might fly across. If a bird doesn’t see the net and tries to fly through, it falls into the pocket of extra netting material where it waits to be retrieved. Banders check the nets every half hour.
Bird banding mist net at Hays Woods, 7 Sep 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Captured birds are brought back to the banding table in cloth bags to keep them calm. Our group watched as Nick prepared to band three birds from the recent net check.
Bird Lab at Hays Woods: 3 workers (orange vests) and three observers, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Each bag contains a surprise. The first was a recaptured Cape May warbler (Setophaga tigrina), originally banded on 20 Sep when it weighed 10.9g. Yesterday it weighed 13.8g for a gain equivalent to the weight of a ruby-throated hummingbird. Such a small bird in Nick’s hand, below.
Nick Liadis holds a Cape May warbler recaptured at Hays Woods on 3 Oct, first banded on 20 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
It was the second Cape May warbler recapture this fall. The first one increased its weight by 50% in two weeks. About the first one, Nick wrote:
A cool recapture from my Hays Woods banding station! This Cape May Warbler was banded on 9/13 and we captured her again two weeks later. She originally weighed 11.6g and today weighs 15.4g. Interesting to see how long some of these birds hang around. I’d imagine she’ll be on her way very soon.
— Nick Liadis message, 27 Sep 2023
Next on the agenda was a hatch year (meaning “hatched this year”) male black-throated blue warbler (Setophaga caerulescens). His color was blue, but not vibrantly so, and his throat had tiny white flecks on it. I had seen a dull bird like this in Frick Park last week and didn’t realize that meant he was young.
BirdLab at Hays Woods: Hatch Year male black-throated blue warbler in partial adult plumage, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Jared Miller)
At each successive net check new species showed up.
The hatch year hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) shown at top was a sign that the mix of migrant species is changing. The insect eaters are nearly gone while the fruit and nuts migrants have arrived (*see note).
The hatch year female house finch, below, was probably born at Hays Woods. Many house finches in the eastern U.S. are permanent residents. Perhaps she will be, too.
BirdLab at Hays Woods: Hatch Year female house finch, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
BirdLab at Hays Woods: Ovenbird, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
By 10:00am we’d been there an hour, it was getting hot (the high yesterday was 85°F!) and the birds were less active. Three of us hiked to the overlook and returned for one more net-check. This time only one bird was captured, a hatch year house wren (Troglodytes aedon) that Nick had banded on 9 August. This bird has spent the last two months foraging at Hays Woods and soon it will migrate to Central or South America.
BirdLab at Hays Woods: House wren, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Jared Miller)
Thanks to Jared Miller for sharing his photos, shown above.
Bonus Bird: After the banding, a rare bird at Duck Hollow:
At 10:30am I received an alert that a migrating American avocet (Recurvirostra americana) was hanging out at Duck Hollow. Avocets in Allegheny County are One Day Wonders. I had never seen one here because I waited a day to go see them. So I made the short trip from Hays Woods to Duck Hollow and digiscoped this lousy picture. The light was too bright to see its faint orange color but you get the idea.
American avocet at Duck Hollow, 3 Oct 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
p.s. (*) Two of the phases of fall migration: ** Insect eaters such as warblers, flycatchers, swifts and swallows migrate through in September because the bug population is going to die when cold weather hits. ** Fruit and nut eaters, including thrushes and sparrows, pass through in October.
When Michael Rivera was in grad school at Carnegie Mellon he spent a lot of time at Arriviste Coffee Roasters in Shadyside. At the time, Arriviste paid a service to collect their coffee grounds but the service stopped during the pandemic and the spent grounds piled up.
Rivera was working on 3D printing technology and saw how to solve two problems at the same time: (1) Reuse coffee grounds instead of throwing them away and (2) Reduce plastic use in 3D printing.
The vast majority of 3D printing machines use thermoplastic to make new objects by melting it and reforming it with the print head.
Rivera is now a postdoctoral researcher at University of Colorado Boulder where he further fleshed out his idea of using spent coffee grounds instead of plastic.
Rivera and colleagues mix dried spent coffee grounds with two common food additives — cellulose gum and xanthan gum — and then mix in water.
“You’re pretty much shooting for the consistency of peanut butter,” Rivera said.
You can’t load that ooze directly into a 3D printer. First, Rivera does a little jury-rigging, modifying a printer with plastic tubes and a syringe filled with coffee paste. When dried, the coffee grounds material is about as tough as unreinforced concrete.
“You can make a lot of things with coffee grounds,” River said. “And when you don’t want it anymore, you can throw it back into a coffee grinder and use the grounds to print again.”
p.s. Does the reuse of coffee grounds sound familiar? I blogged about it a few weeks ago but forgot to mention it until Jennie Barker made the comments below.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons, Kate St. John, Arriviste Coffee Roasters Facebook banner, and embedded photo from Ars Technica; click on the captions to see the originals)
In September birders lurk near devil’s walking stick in Frick Park because the plants attract birds on migration. Crawling with tiny insects and full of fruit, devil’s walking stick is often swarmed with visiting warblers, cedar waxwings and robins. But is it really devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa)? Or is it the invasive look-alike Japanese angelica (Aralia elata)? Or even worse, is it a hybrid?
Anne Swaim responded to Dave’s post saying “Probably Aralia elata, the Japanese Angelica. Great bird attractant (but really invasive.) Same genus as the native Devil’s walking stick.”
Native to eastern Russia, China, Korea and Japan, Japanese angelica (Aralia elata) was brought to the U.S. as an ornamental plant. It’s well known in eastern Pennsylvania and New York state because those areas are outside Aralia spinosa‘s native range. Pittsburgh is on the border though, so I always assumed I was looking at the native plant.
It’s so hard to tell them apart that New York Botanical Garden posted this guide to invasive look-alikes. Here’s a screenshot from the Aralia sp pages:
Their Quick ID is helpful for non-botanists like me.
Quick ID of Aralia elata (invasive alien):
Leaf veins: Main lateral veins running all the way to the tips of teeth at the leaf margin.
Inflorescence: Inflorescence shorter, typically 30–60 cm long, and WITHOUT a distinct central axis (often wider than long, with base usually surrounded by and even overtopped by foliage).
Quick ID of Aralia spinosa (native):
Leaf veins: Main lateral veins branching and diminishing in size before reaching the leaf margin (smaller branching veins may run to the tips of teeth)
Inflorescence: Inflorescence longer, often 1–1.2 m long, WITH a distinct central axis (typically longer than wide, base usually elevated above foliage).
I tried to identify the plants at Frick by looking at the leaves but it’s very hard to do. The easiest way is by looking at the inflorescence — the tower of flowers.
Japanese angelica’s (Aralia elata) inflorescence basically lies flat. It does not have a central stem and the leaves may cover some of the flowers. Here’s Japanese angelica at Frick.
Inflorescence below the leaves = Japanese elata in Frick Park (photo by Kate St. John)
Devil’s walking stick’s (Aralia spinosa) inflorescence stands tall above the leaves on a central stalk.
Meanwhile, for the sake of the warblers I am deciding not to get excited that these plants are alien. The birds love them so much and I love the birds so …
Despite the current warm weather, chipmunks (Tamias striatus) are frantically gathering food to store in their underground burrows where they’ll spend the winter. Since they can’t use their paws to carry food, they fill their enormous cheek pouches.
What could possibly make their cheeks so fat? How about acorns?
With so many chipmunks scurrying in autumn, you rarely see two together. Chipmunks are antisocial but they like to make calls to warn each other of predators. Among their most common calls are two kinds of warnings.
Cheep or Chip: “Danger from the ground!” This call sounds almost like a bird and warns of nearby terrestrial predators such as a cat, fox, coyote or raccoon.
Tock or Knock: “Danger from the air! I see a hawk!” This is a useful call for birders that tells us to search for a hawk nearby. However, chipmunks know that hawks fly rapidly through the forest so all of them take up the call, far and wide, even though the hawk is not near them. Tock! Tock! Tock! Where is that hawk? Erf!
I’m dressed for hunting season, winter 2021-2022 (photo by Linda Roth)
30 September 2023
Stylish blaze orange over purple, accented by a dayglo yellow hat!
Birders and hikers are out in the woods at all times of year. You don’t have to look as eccentric as I do but it’s important to dress for success during deer and wild turkey seasons in Pennsylvania.
Allegheny County has so many deer that bow hunting (Deer Archery Season) has been allowed in municipalities and County Parks for many years. This fall is the first time it will occur in the Frick and Riverview Parks. Some city dwellers are nervous, especially those who don’t spend time in the woods or in North or South Parks where hunting is allowed.
Bow season — officially called DEER, ARCHERY (Antlered and Antlerless) Season — runs Statewide in Pennsylvania Mondays to Saturdays, Sept 30 – Nov 17 (Nov 24 in Allegheny County) and Dec 26 – Jan 15 (Jan 27 in Allegheny County).
Here is my message to park users. I am not worried because …
For many years I’ve hiked in the woods alone even during hunting season including at Moraine State Park. I wear orange so I can be seen. You should too (blaze orange shown above). I understand being worried because this is a new experience for most park users. Thirty years ago I was worried because it was new to me. Experience put my fears to rest. I have *never* encountered a problem in 30 years of hiking during hunting season nor have any of my birding friends who are out in the woods as well. It is rare to see a hunter except in the parking lot. They are never hunting in the parking lot.
So dress for hunting season. And don’t expect to see a hunter. The hunters are in tree stands deep in the woods where the deer are, not where people are. (Don’t miss my update below.)
If you want to know about the City of Pittsburgh’s deer overpopulation read my Deer Category here. (Some of the articles are on more general topics with photos of deer in Frick and Schenley.)
UPDATE, noon on 30 Sept: I went birding in Frick Park this morning for 2.5 hours and saw zero hunters and among all the other visitors only one person wore blaze orange. When the day warmed up I took off my coat and gave up on my orange running vest. This is what I wore. (OK, so I broke my own rule but really, there were lots and lots of people and no hunters in sight.)
For all my preaching, this is what I ended up wearing at Frick Park on 30 Sept 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Note: PA Game seasons have many special dates, times and arms. Click here to download a pocket guide that lists all the nuances for 2023-2024.
p.s. I have corrected the text to reflect this change: Hunters wear orange during firearms season but bow hunters wear camouflage because they wait in tree stands for the deer to walk beneath them.
Elk bugling in Elk County, Pennsylvania (photo by Paul Staniszewski)
29 September 2023
If you’ve been waiting to hear the elk bugling in Pennsylvania, now’s the time to make the trip to Benezette, PA.
In September and October Pennsylvania’s elk (Cervus canadensis) are in the rut, their annual period of sexual activity. The bulls gather harems, pursue the females, antler-spar with other males, and “sing” a bugling love song.
Like white-tailed deer, male elk grow new antlers every year but these cervids are huge. Males are 25% larger than the females and can weigh up to 1,100 pounds with antlers that can span five feet.
Consequently it’s a bit surprising that the bugle is such a high-pitched call. Its bell-like echoing carries far in the woods and fields.
On Saturday 17 September, my friends Mary and Bea were walking to the Bloomfield Saturday Market when they couldn’t help but notice a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) hunting on the lawn at Shadyside Hospital. Mary stopped to take his picture.
Perched on the blue sign, I can tell the bird is immature because his tail isn’t rusty red. In early June he was still in the nest. Soon he learned to fly, then to hunt. Now, months later, he can feed himself but he’s not an expert. It takes time and luck to get a meal.
In autumn young red-tails disperse on their first migration and every place they stop is completely new to them. Those that grew up in urban environments are unbothered by traffic and people so they may gravitate to open areas near buildings in search of prey.
This hawk was so focused on hunting that he ignored Mary while she took his picture. Read more about the hawk’s single mindedness in this article from 2009.
p.s. This red-tail may have been attracted to the noise of house sparrows tweeting inside that bright green hedge. There are always lots of them in there, but they shut up as soon as I look so I rarely see one. As far as I know, I’m the only one — other than a hawk — that peers inside that hedge.
