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
The Louisiana [orange sweet potato] industry coined the term “yam” in 1937 as part of a national marketing campaign to differentiate its product from the drier, white-fleshed types [of sweet potatoes] being grown on the East Coast.
The mix-up between yams and sweet potatoes originated from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yams are an important part of West African food traditions. They are crucial to the regional diet with a religious significance and a cultural heritage.
As European slave traders steered their ships across the Middle Passage, they packed [African] yams, along with black-eyed peas, to feed their captives. … In the Americas, where yams were not readily available, sweet potatoes, which had traveled from Central America with Christopher Columbus, took their place. … Sweet potatoes became one of several transfer foods, a throughline allowing enslaved peoples to preserve their traditions and spiritual practices even in the face of captivity and abuse.
When I wrote about sweet potatoes in 2015, the words “sweet potato” were not on the labels in the grocery store but they’re there now, as seen in my photo at top. The Library of Congress pointed out in November 2019, “Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’”
Perhaps USDA will completely change the name some day. Meanwhile find out more about the African yam, our native true yam and morning glory sweet potatoes in this vintage article:
Birds preen to keep their feathers in tip-top condition, removing dirt and parasites, waterproofing their feathers with preen oil, and setting each feather in place. They have only one tool with which to do this.
Birds use their beaks to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean their plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check.
To reach each feather their necks have to be flexible.
Yesterday Morela looked like a contortionist as she groomed for more than two hours in front of the Pitt peregrine nest. Here are the snapshots in a video.
Earth will be a different sort of place — soon, in just five or six human generations. My label for that place, that time, that apparently unavoidable prospect, is the Planet of Weeds.
The plants pictured here are some of those weeds, all of them non-native invasives that happen to provide food for birds and small mammals.
Last week in Frick Park large flocks of American robins gobbled up oriental bittersweet, honeysuckle and porcelain berry fruits. As they continue their migration they’ll deposit the seeds along the way.
(Amur) honeysuckle fruit, NMR Trail, 27 Oct 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Porcelain berry fruit, NMR Trail, 27 Oct 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Animals that aren’t afraid of thorns eat the fruits of Japanese barberry.
Japanese barberry in October (photo by Kate St. John)
After the frost softens the Callery pears robins and starlings strip the fruit from these invasive trees.
Callery pear fruits in November 2012 (photo by Kate St. John)
Even though the fruits are “weeds” they can be beautiful.
Greater yellowlegs, Duck Hollow, 30 Oct 2022 (photo by Lisa Kaufman)
31 October 2022
Birds are considered rare when they show up at a time or place that’s unusual for them. The rarest are the birds out of place, two of which we saw yesterday at Duck Hollow.
The surf scoter (Melanitta perspicillata) first seen at Duck Hollow by John Flannigan on 26 October was still present on the 30th. Autumn is the right time of year to find a surf scoter migrating through Pennsylvania but Pittsburgh is a rare place to find one. Surf scoters nest in Alaska and northern Canada and spend the winter at the coasts.
We saw the scoter yesterday drifting downstream beyond the Homestead Grays Bridge in a view similar to Michelle Kienholz’s photo below. This dark and distant duck with a ‘Roman nose’ and some white on its head/face was a Life Bird for many in the group. (Click here for a better photo by Justin Kolakowski.)
Surf scoter at Duck Hollow, 26 Oct 2022, 5:44pm (photo by Michelle Kienholz)
Our favorite rare bird of the day was the greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) that we heard before we found him. Greater yellowlegs had never been recorded at Duck Hollow in autumn and rarely show up in Allegheny County even in spring. They nest in Canada and Alaska and spend the winter near the US southern coasts and in Central and South America.
When we heard his call (similar to audio below) we went down to the shore to find him.
Greater and lesser yellowlegs are similar but our bird’s vocalization, his slightly upturned beak and his behavior were diagnostic.
Generally walks with high-stepping gait; occasionally runs with neck extended. Movements rapid and jerky.
Two years ago, on 6 June 2020, Steve Gosser was birding at McConnell’s Mill when he heard a scarlet tanager singing but it didn’t look like one. Steve’s photos showed the bird to be a cross between a rose-breasted grosbeak and a scarlet tanager.
Hybrid rose-breasted grosbeak + scarlet tanager singing, June 2020 (photo by Steve Gosser)
The next day ornithologists Bob Mulvihill and Steve Latta banded the bird and took blood samples for DNA testing. At top, Steve Gosser holds the bird before releasing him after banding while Bob dubbed the bird a “Scarlet Gosserbeak.” The bird was slightly famous when I blogged about him on 8 June 2020 at Who Is this Mystery Bird.
Mulvihill and Latta submitted the DNA samples for analysis and received an answer in February 2021 that the bird is indeed a hybrid of a rose-breasted grosbeak mother + scarlet tanager father. His scientific name is Pheucticus ludovicianus x Piranga olivacea (mother’s species listed first).
No one had ever heard of such a hybrid. The birds are in the same family, Cardinalidae, but not closely related. Tanagers are Piranga genus, grosbeaks are Pheucticus genus.
Sunrise in Pittsburgh, 28 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
29 October 2022
Fall color was brilliant this week, especially at sunrise.
Bright red was gone from our hillsides as the maples faded but other leaves took up the slack in yellow and orange. Below:
Bottlebrush buckeyes are yellow in Schenley Park.
Japanese knotweed is yellow-orange at Duck Hollow.
Blue-green porcelain berries were eagerly eaten by migrating robins.
Red honeysuckle berries attracted cardinals and house finches.
Confused flowers! Forsythia bloomed along the Nine Mile Run Trail even though its leaves were a deep purple-red.
Red oaks are red-orange in Schenley Park.
Bottlebrush buckeye leaves turn yellow in Schenley Park, 25 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Fall color, Japanese knotweed, Duck Hollow, 27 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Porcelain berry fruit, Nine Mile Run Trail, 27 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Honeysuckle fruit, Nine Mile Run Trail, 27 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Forsythia blooming in late October, NMR Trail, 27 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Fall color, Schenley Park from Panther Hollow Bridge, 25 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Back in the Late Permian, 258 to 252 million years ago, there was a family of gliding lizards called Weigeltisauridae whose fossils have been found in Germany, Britain, Russia and Madagascar. Europeans drew them as dragons.
Today there are still gliding lizards on Earth but they are smaller and live in Asian jungles. Dracos can glide 100+ feet from tree to tree by extending their long skin-covered ribs.
Bald eagles are birds of prey that eat fish, right? Well, mostly fish. Bald eagles are opportunistic feeders that will grab what they can get. Most of the time they catch live fish but they’ll also pounce on ducks and coots, steal fish from ospreys, scavenge on roadkill and fight each other for tasty morsels.
Juvenile bald eagles are not skilled at fishing so many opt for easy meals found elsewhere, particularly at landfills. It may be junk food but it keeps them satisfied.
Raven over Dawson Street near Schenley Park, 23 October 2022, 8:30am (photo by Andrea Lavin Kossis)
26 October 2022
During the summer corvids stay home to raise their families but as soon as the breeding season is over they move around. In autumn large flocks of American crows return to Pittsburgh to join the winter roost while a few common ravens show up, alone or in pairs.
This month the crows and ravens are back in town. Since August their populations have gone through several phases.
Crows flying to the roost, Pittsburgh, 16 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Late August: On 30 August a surprising count of 380 fish crows gathered on rooftops at Fifth & Craig while only 12 American crows were present that evening.
September: By 6 September fish crow numbers dropped from 30 to zero. American crow numbers rose through the hundreds. No ravens.
October so far: On 10 October a high count 620 American crows flew past “the doorknob” water tower at dusk. By late October no crows were counted because they changed their route. However we now see and hear ravens!
The “doorknob” water tower at dusk, Upper Hill, October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Ravens in town?
Crows migrate. Adult ravens stay home year round. However, young ravens go wandering until they reach sexual maturity at three years old. From fall through early spring a handful of these ravens visit Pittsburgh.
Last Sunday 23 October Andrea Lavin Kossis saw two ravens on Dawson Street dining on some “delicious roadkill.” The pair even had something to say about it.
Brock! Brock!
p.s. In December I’ll enlist your help to find the crow roost in time for the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count.
