Doe on the trail in Frick Park, 10 Nov 2022 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
13 November 2022
It’s mid November and the rut is at its peak in Pennsylvania. Bucks sniff the air for females in estrous (flehmen), chase does in heat, and hide with them in thick cover to breed repeatedly. Some run into traffic, including yesterday’s road-killed 6-point buck in Schenley Park. Meanwhile birders in Frick Park are seeing all of this up close. Very close.
On 10 November Charity Kheshgi and I encountered a group of five. Two does and an 8-point buck were hiding in a thicket when a 4-point buck walked onto the trail behind us, sniffed the air and looked down at the females. Meanwhile another doe (at top) walked onto the trail ahead of us. This could have been dangerous for the two of us. Fortunately the deer did not view us as competitors.
4-point buck on the trail looks down at the 8-point and two does, 10 Nov 2022 (photo by Charity Khseshgi)
The 8-pointer was hard to see in the underbrush but he resembled this 10-point buck Mike Fialkovich saw on 5 November that appears to be flehmening.
10-point buck in Frick Park, 5 Nov 2022 (photo by Mike Fialkovich)
Deer are a prey species, alert to the presence and intent of predators. “Is the predator here? Is it hunting?” And they move to locations of least danger. We see them up close in Frick Park because they have learned that humans in Pittsburgh’s city parks are not dangerous even during hunting season.
Meanwhile, hunting is currently in progress statewide and it’s good to be aware of it. We have so many deer in our area — Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) 2B — that hunting lasts longer here than in most of the state.
Spanish cellist Diana Gomez plays music outdoors in many venues. Here’s what happened when she took her cello into a forest and played Bach’s Suite No.1.
Most of the trees are bare on this Schenley Park hillside, 6 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
10 November 2022
In Pittsburgh the wind blew all day last Saturday with gusts as high at 35 mph. By Sunday morning, 6 November, most of the trees were bare.
I confirmed this at my favorite “leaf gauge” hillside in Schenley Park, above, after hiking at Hays Woods where bare trees sheltered the still-green leaves of invasive honeysuckle.
Most of the trees are bare inside Hays Woods, 6 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Deciduous conifers are finally showing their own fall colors. Larches are yellow, dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) are orange.
Deciduous needles on a dawn redwood, 7 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
The needles were dropping fast from this one in front of Phipps Conservatory.
Dawn redwood at Phipps, 7 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Meanwhile half of the ginkgos (Ginkgo biloba) along Schenley Drive still had leaves.
Ginkgos along Schenley Drive, 7 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Last year they weren’t bare until 20 November, below, but I predict they will be earlier this year.
Ginkgo trees lost their leaves later in 2021. This is 20 Nov (photo by Kate St. John)
Even if I couldn’t see them I can hear a clue that most of the trees are bare. The sound of leaf blowers fills my neighborhood. Maybe yours, too.
Sound of a leaf blower, Pittsburgh, 8 Nov 2022 (recorded by Kate St. John)
How many crows are in this picture? That’s how many years I’ve been writing this blog.
15 candles for Outside My Window (party crow by Joan Guerin)
15 Years!
After all this time I’m used to getting up early every morning (4am) to write the day’s article, usually from scratch. I hope for inspiration and enough time to do the research, find photos, tie it together with cogent prose, and publish by 7:30am or 8:00am. If you’ve been paying attention lately you know I sometimes miss my deadline. (Aaarg!) Fortunately I get to try again the next day.
In 2014 with seven years of blogging and 2,320 posts I realized that some articles are worth a second look so I started my own re-runs (called “Throw Back Thursdays” à la Facebook). After 15 years I now have 5,545 articles to choose from.
You, dear readers, are why I keep writing every day. I enjoy birds, nature and peregrine falcons and I enjoy learning new things, but it would all be useless without your enthusiasm, comments, and sharing with friends.
And it would be boring text without the great photographers who let me use their photos and videos. A Big Thank You to all of them. See who they are here.
Today’s celebration would not be complete without remarks from a Corvid. A raven (Corvus corax) is stepping in to say, “Happy Bird-day!” and comment on my missed deadlines.
Total lunar eclipse, digiscoped through Pittsburgh city lights and haze, 8 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
8 November 2022
This week southwestern Pennsylvania witnessed many atmospheric effects from clear skies to troubled clouds, rainbows and a total lunar eclipse. Here are the stories behind six pictures.
Total lunar eclipse, 8 Nov 2022, 5:29am, photo through my birding scope. The sky was hazy and I am terrible at digi-scoping so by the time I got a decent shot of the moon it was leaving my view. But you get the idea.
Atmospheric optics around the sun, 5 Nov 2022, 9:20am, Yellow Creek State Park, PA. Ice crystals in the clouds produced two sun dogs, a 22 degree halo, and a circumzenithal arc (upside down rainbow at top). Click on the links to read about each phenomenon.
Ice crystals in the clouds produce two sun dogs, a 22 degree halo, and a circumzenithal arc, Yellow Creek State Park, 5 November 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Layers of troubled clouds, 5 Nov 2022, 5:45pm: Later that same day two layers of clouds raced overhead in gusty wind. The lower layer threatened rain at the horizon while the upper layer glowed in sunlight.
Lower clouds threaten rain at the horizon while upper clouds catch sunlight, 5 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Light mist over the Monongahela River at Duck Hollow, 3 Nov 2022, 10am.
Haze over the Monongahela River at Duck Hollow, 3 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Rainbow over Pittsburgh, 6 Nov 2022, 1pm: On Sunday I hiked at Hays Woods with Linda Roth (in foreground) and the 40 Acres AKA Hays Woods Enthusiasts. We got caught in a brief downpour but there was a Big Sky reward: a beautiful rainbow.
Rainbow as seen from Hays Woods, Pittsburgh, 6 Nov 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
The sky glows before sunrise on a clear day, 7 Nov 2022, 6:27am.
The scimitar-horned oryx or scimitar oryx (Oryx dammah) is extinct in the wild but not extinct on Earth. These iconic animals still exist because their beauty prompted us to preserve them.
Unfortunately the wild population of scimitar oryx dropped to less than 200 by the early 1980’s and within 10 years the last ever seen was in Chad. Declared extinct in the wild in 2000, they still existed in captivity.
Soon captive breeding programs looked for suitable locations in the Sahel for the antelope’s reintroduction and began breeding them in zoos and in herds to succeed in the wild. In the U.S., ranches in Texas breed them for reintroduction and for hunting.
To get an idea of what the animals look like, see this video from the Greater Vancouver Zoo.
Thanks to captive breeding, the first scimitar-horned oryx were released in Chad in 2016, as shown in this video.
Many endangered species go extinct before we know they exist. That didn’t happen to this iconic animal.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons, map from researchgate; click on the captions to see the originals)
In 1994 dozens of bald eagles were found convulsing, dead or paralyzed near Arkansas’ DeGray Lake. Autopsies revealed the eagles died of a new disease called avian vacuolar myelinopathy (VM) that manifests as brain lesions. The dying spread to Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Texas (hashed areas on the map below) and continues to this day. In 2021 scientists discovered what causes VM. It’s a chain of events that begins when we use an aquatic weed killer to control an invasive weed.
VM occurs in watersheds where A. hydrillicola colonizes H. verticillata. Watersheds where VM has been diagnosed (indicated by black crosshatching). Watersheds where H. verticillata has been confirmed to be colonized with A. hydrillicola are shown in red, and watersheds where A. hydrillicola has not yet been observed on H. verticillata are shown in yellow. Watersheds not yet screened for A. hydrillicola, but where H. verticillata occurs, are shown in green. This map, embedded from NIH, is current to fall 2019.
The invasive weed is hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) that spreads easily and clogs waterways. It’s a huge problem in many southeastern states, especially in Florida.
Integrated chemical plant management plans to control H. verticillata should avoid the use of bromide-containing chemicals (e.g., diquat dibromide). [The neurotoxin] AETX is lipophilic with the potential for bioaccumulation during transfer through food webs, so mammals may also be at risk.
(photos and diagram from Wikimedia Commons, map embedded from NIH; click on the captions to see the originals)
(*) The mystery was solved when scientists discovered that the toxin came from bromides that did not occur naturally. From NIH, Hunting the eagle killer: A cyanobacterial neurotoxin causes vacuolar myelinopathy: “Laboratory cultures of the cyanobacterium, however, did not elicit VM. A. hydrillicola growing on H. verticillata collected at VM-positive reservoirs was then analyzed by mass spectrometry imaging, which revealed that cyanobacterial colonies were colocalized with a brominated metabolite. Supplementation of an A. hydrillicola laboratory culture with potassium bromide resulted in pronounced biosynthesis of this metabolite. H. verticillata hyperaccumulates bromide from the environment, potentially supplying the cyanobacterium with this biosynthesis precursor.”
When we turn our clocks back tonight it may be the last time we’ll have to do it in the U.S. And then again, it might not be.
Our current DST law sets Daylight Saving Time for the entire U.S. and allows states and territories to opt out of it (stay on Standard Time). Those who have include most of Arizona, Guam, Hawaii, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
However the current law does not allow states to stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round even though Florida, Washington, California, and Oregon legislatures have all passed bills to make it permanent and 22 other states are considering it.
On March 15, 2022, the US Senate unanimously passed the Sunshine Protection Act. The bill proposes—beginning in November 2023—that all states go on permanent DST, which is one hour later than standard time. States that have passed legislation for permanent DST will be allowed to enact their legislation. [It also allows states and territories that never switch to DST to stay on Standard Time as they do today. ]
But permanent DST is just a gleam in the eye of those who want it. It hasn’t passed the House.
Thus countries that border the U.S. have the usual dilemma. Southern Canadian provinces have so far stayed in synch with U.S. time zones. Meanwhile Mexico abolished Daylight Saving Time on 26 October 2022 (last month!) but allows northern border locations to stay in synch with the U.S.
Will we have Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Who knows. It’s more likely we’ll have Permanent Confusion.
p.s. The photo above is by Wendy Miller@geococcyxcal, Creative Commons license on Flickr. I don’t know if her photos were part of the competition but they oughta be!
(*) Because the contest is in the UK the prize is in British pounds: £500
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