Severe cold weather has people huddling indoors and birds flocking to feeders across North America. If you don’t have a feeder you can still watch birds online at Ontario Feederwatch, one of the best around.
Tune in to see the usual suspects — cardinals, chickadees, blue jays — and some boreal specialities including common redpolls, pine siskins, pine grosbeaks (above), evening grosbeaks, and crossbills.
Morela in snow at the nest, 19 December 2022 (photo from the National Aviary snapshot camera at Univ of Pittsburgh)
20 December 2022
Yesterday, despite the cold, Morela and Ecco each visited the Pitt peregrine nest at the Cathedral of Learning. Morela spent two hours preening on the green perch, then Ecco stopped by for half an hour. Their activities were captured as snapshots which I’ve turned into a video.
Peregrine falcons are well adapted to deal with cold weather. As they preen you occasionally see thick down underneath their outer feathers. Birds wear down coats. 😉
Crows at a staging location on their way to the roost, Nov 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)
19 December 2022
Pittsburgh’s Christmas Bird Count is only 12 days away on 31 December 2022 so my search for Pittsburgh’s winter crow roost has taken on some urgency. I need to find their roost and a good vantage point for counting them, all before New Year’s Eve. Please let me know where you see crows overnight or after sunset, especially next week (after Christmas)!
mid-November: On the Cardello Building near the West End Bridge
Dec 8 & 9: Flying over Mt. Oliver/Allentown just before dawn
Dec 11 and 14: roosting at City View, PPG Paints Arena and Cambria Hotel area
Dec 14: Big flocks flying east to west over Kennard Playground as viewed from Elmore St
I’ve checked from City View to the Hill District but haven’t made it to Mt. Oliver/Allentown yet. This map includes your sightings in orange and mine in yellow.
If I’ve learned anything it’s that the crows keep moving their roost, sometimes rather far. They’ve already abandoned the PPG Paints Arena area and have nudged their Hill District roost further north. Where will they be 12 days from now?
The other mystery is that I’ve only seen 5,000 of them. Does Pittsburgh have 10,000 to 20,000 crows as we did in years past? Where are the other 5,000 to 15,000?
Please let me know where you see crows overnight or after sunset. I’ll be out of town over Christmas and am going to miss the next crow move (they will change location when it’s only 7 degrees on Fri & Sat nights). Your help is really crucial.
I hope to count 10,000 to 20,000 crows on New Year’s Eve.
(and yes, I need to check Mt. Oliver/Allentown!)
(photo by Kate St. John, annotated map screenshot from Google Maps, click on the caption to see the original)
The Gleam at Sunset, Pittsburgh, 2 Feb 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
18 December 2022
Often in winter Pittsburgh has overcast skies all day and clear skies at night. When the transition happens at sunset we see clear sky approaching from the west but it arrives too late for us to enjoy the sun. We have 10 minutes of sunshine and then it’s dark. I call this The Gleam At Sunset.
Why does this happen so often? Does Ohio have lovely weather all day that only reaches us at night?
Gleam at sunset, Downtown Pittsburgh in the distance, 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)
Pittsburgh is well known for overcast skies in winter but you may be surprised where the clouds come from.
Lake Erie plays an extensive role in our cloud cover and, as long as it isn’t frozen over during the winter, it serves as a local moisture source that plagues the region with clouds. … Most places have clear blue skies after a cold front passage, but when we have northerly flow off of the lake we have cloud cover.”
Buffalo, New York has Lake Effect Snow. I like to think that Pittsburgh has “Lake Effect Clouds.”
Mixing and the Boundary Layer
When the air is well mixed (wind and/or rising warm air, falling cold air) it creates a defined line between the clouds and the rest of us below. In winter and early spring this mixing happens while the air is heated during the day.
During the winter and early spring, often times we observe a well-mixed boundary layer (we call this boundary layer coupling). When the atmosphere is coupled/mixed, the top of that mixing height is where we observe a cloud base [i.e. the bottom of the overcast deck]. You may even feel gusty wind during the day that supports the notion of a mixed atmosphere, when strong wind aloft is transported to the surface through this means.
The cloud base remains well defined while the air is mixing. It falls apart when the mixing stops at sunset.
At night, wind gusts typically subside as the surface cools and the atmosphere becomes decoupled again in tandem with sunset / loss of daytime heating. At decoupling you may lose your mixing height and essentially dissolve your cloud cover.
Golden eagle at the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, 2 Nov 2016 (photo by Steve Gosser)
19 December 2022
Golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) occur worldwide in the northern hemisphere but are quite rare in Pittsburgh though we see them on migration at the Allegheny Front. Their stronghold in North America is in the American West but now the birds face many threats.
Pittsburgh conservation filmmakers, David and Melissa Rohm of Wild Excellence Films, went to Wyoming to learn about the challenges the eagles face and meet the people working to save them. Their film, Golden Eagles: Witnesses to a Changing West, will air on WQED this coming Wednesday, 21 December 2022 at 10:00pm.
In the film we learn that golden eagles prefer wide open spaces without human interference so when we move in, they move out. They’ve disappeared from many areas heavily disturbed by humans and, according to Birds of the World, most North American nesting populations are declining or below carrying capacity due, in part, to anthropogenic related mortality.
Watch eagle researchers rappel down cliffs to band golden eagle chicks. Visit wildlife rehabilitation centers where eagles are treated for lead poisoning. Hear Indigenous people’s connections to the largest eagle in the American West.
(photo of golden eagle at the Allegheny Front by Steve Gosser, map from Wikimedia Commons, remaining images from Wild Excellence Films, click on the captions to see the originals)
A yellow-throated warbler (Setophaga dominica) would not be rare in Pittsburgh in early May but to see one in Canada in December is amazing.
This bird was photographed in St. John’s, Newfoundland on 9 December by Phillip (Felip1).
It’s not a very sharp picture but enough to identify him: a Yellow-throated warbler. He showed up for some suet early this morning.
I was half-expecting him. He had been visiting a suet feeder a couple of hundred metres away from us a few days ago. And one of the flickers had chopped up lotsa suet for him from the suet holder above. Those flickers are pigs but the other birds appreciate it.
Even though it is mid-December, the weather’s been mild and there are a half-dozen warblers who have apparently decided to try their luck to spend the winter around this town, St. John’s, Newfoundland, when all their relatives decamped a couple of months ago for more southern climes.
Pennsylvania is typically the northern limit of the yellow-throated warbler’s range and it’s a short-distance migrant to Florida and the Caribbean. St. John’s, Newfoundland is not even on the map (red arrow points toward it) but Newfoundland is about as far as Florida if you’re migrating from PA in the wrong direction.
Even though it’s December and the weather will only get worse, western Pennsylvania’s bald eagles are gearing up for the nesting season with plans to lay eggs in February.
Established pairs are hanging out together and guarding their territories. Interlopers are testing the limits to see if they can claim an existing site. Subadult eagles are roaming the rivers, trying to steal prey from each other and adults.
Dedicated eagle watchers are already stopping by the viewing sites to catch a glimpse of the action.
At the Hays viewing area on 4 December, Dana Nesiti of Eagles of Hays PA found “both eagles above the nest this morning at first light” (photo at top). On 20 November he saw a prey item stolen twice:
At 9:17am a Peregrine Falcon flew past the nest upstream carrying prey. The male gave chase and they both flew up and over the hillside. 9:35am the male comes flying back carrying prey with a sub adult hot on his tail feathers. They flew down past the stick store and we saw them dive, both eagles came circling back towards the nest. Now the sub adult was carrying the prey and the male was chasing him.
Just one week away from the winter solstice birds are not abundant in Pittsburgh and are certainly not singing, but it’s still good for us to seek them out. A new study says that the sight or sound of birds makes us happier.
Published in October in Scientific Reports, the study enlisted 1,200+ participants in the UK, EU and US. Using a phone app called Urban Mind, participants were asked three times a day whether they could see or hear birds plus questions about their mental well-being. The data showed that being near birds improved the mental health of people both with and without depression. The good mood lasts 8 hours.
It certainly works for me. I was recently upset by sad news of a friend and could not stop thinking about it. Hours later, still mourning, I went out for a walk. While my brain was busy with sadness a noisy crow flew over and drew my attention, “Hey!” I stopped to look at the crow and my brain shifted gears. Already I felt happier. Thank you, crows.
