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.
Doe drinks from a pond in Homewood Cemetery, Pittsburgh, 10 October 2022 (photo by John English)
25 October 2022
If you’ve been watching white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the City of Pittsburgh you’ve noticed that they’ve changed their behavior since early September. Back then deer were easy find in groups during the day but now in October they seem to have gone missing. Soon — very soon — they’ll be running into traffic. All of this is part of their breeding season, called the rut, which is driven by photoperiod.
In late summer, white-tailed deer hang out in bachelor groups of adult males and matriarchal groups of does with fawns. As the rut goes through phases, described below, the dynamics change. In the city we live with so many deer that it’s good to know the phases.
Pre-Rut Phase: In late September and early October testosterone levels rise in the bucks, they rub on trees and shed velvet from their antlers. The bachelor groups break up as each male goes it alone and adjusts his home range. During this phase the bucks eat a lot, especially acorns. Once the rut begins they’ll be too busy to eat while chasing, breeding and tending does.
Seeking and Chasing Phase: As the females begin coming into estrous the males search for and chase does in heat. The bucks move around lot, averaging 3-6 miles per day. Meanwhile doe+fawn groups break up as adult females become distracted. Watch out! They may run into traffic.
The late summer groups have already broken up in Schenley and Frick Parks. The only deer I’ve seen recently are lone females or almost grownup fawns.
At the peak of the rut bucks make long excursions out of their home range in search of females, sometimes 10-20 miles. The peak also includes a “tending” phase during which bucks and does pair up and hide in thick cover to breed repeatedly.
Post-Rut Phase: Activity drops off precipitously in early December after most of the does have bred. Adults stop wandering and settle into their home ranges. The males still have antlers and some will search for recently-matured fawns that come into estrous (red color in graph above), but the frantic edge is gone.
When will we see deer in lazy groups again in the city parks? Wait and see.
11+ deer in Schenley Park, Cathedral of Learning in distance, March 2019 (photo by Kate St John)
The Monongahela River at Duck Hollow, 25 Oct 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
24 October 2022
Right now our weather is in Second Summer but by next weekend Pittsburgh should be back in Jacket Weather. It’s a lovely time to be outdoors so join me next Sunday 30 October 2022, 8:30am to 10:30am, for a bird and nature walk at Duck Hollow.
We’ll walk nearby paths looking for birds, interesting plants, and lingering insects. Mallard behavior may attract our attention because mallards are courting right now.
Dress for the weather and wear comfortable walking shoes. Bring binoculars, field guides and a birding scope if you have them.
Visit the Events page before you come in case of changes or cancellations.
The archaeological record shows that life on Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in which 70% to 90% of all species disappeared (*). After each extinction life came back.
The extinction rate today indicates we are now in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. Scientists predict that due to human pressure, habitat loss and climate change as much as 50% of all species will go extinct by 2100. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Interestingly, the IUCN Red List’s extinction ranking shows that birds may not fare as badly as many other organisms. It’s bad news for conifers, frogs and horseshoe crabs, though.
from Wikimedia Commons
In the short term we are helping some species such as the Guam kingfisher (Todiramphus cinnamominus), shown above, already extinct in the wild and in a captive breeding program. In the long term we humans could change our ways to slow or stop species decline. Knowing humans, it doesn’t look good. We can mourn the future but if we take a very long view there is hope.
After the sixth mass extinction, what will happen next?
David Quammen‘s article Planet of Weeds in Harper’s October 1998 described the current mass extinction and asked eminent paleontologist David Jablonski “What next?” The article is quoted below.
Among the last questions I asked Jablonski was, What will happen after this mass extinction, assuming it proceeds to a worst-case scenario? If we destroy half or two thirds of all living species, how long will it take for evolution to fill the planet back up? “I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “I’d rather not bottom out and see what happens next.” In the journal paper he had hazarded that, based on fossil evidence in rock laid down atop the K-T event and others, the time required for full recovery might be five or ten million years. From a paleontological perspective, that’s fast. “Biotic recoveries after mass extinctions are geologically rapid but immensely prolonged on human time scales,” he wrote. There was also the proviso, cited from another expert, that recovery might not begin until after the extinction-causing circumstances have disappeared. But in this case, of course, the circumstances won’t likely disappear until we do.
Still, evolution never rests. It’s happening right now, in weed patches all over the planet. … So we might reasonably imagine an Earth upon which, ten million years after the extinction (or, alternatively, the drastic transformation) of Homo sapiens, wondrous forests are again filled with wondrous beasts. That’s the good news.
440 million years ago: Ordovician-Silurian Extinction: Small marine organisms died out at a time when life only existed in the oceans. 85% of all species went extinct.
365 million years ago: Devonian Extinction: Many tropical marine species went extinct. 70% of all species lost.
250 million years ago: Permian-triassic Extinction: The largest mass extinction event in Earth’s history. 90% of all species.
210 million years ago: Triassic-jurassic Extinction: The extinction of other vertebrate species on land allowed dinosaurs to flourish. 70% to 75% of all species went extinct.
65 million years ago: K-Pg (or K-T) Extinction: The event that killed the dinosaurs. 75% of all species lost.
Wispy contrails over Pittsburgh, 15 Oct 2022, 1:40pm (photo by Kate St. John)
22 October 2022
Pittsburgh skies put on a show in mid October.
On the 15th feathery contrails were pushed by high winds at 30,000 feet. We could not see them at dawn because of the lumpy clouds.
Sunrise with clouds, 15 Oct 2022, 7:20am (photo by Kate St. John)
The next day the wind dropped, a temperature inversion set in, and rotten-egg smog gathered in the Monongahela Valley, below.
Inversion shows pollution from US Steel trapped in the Mon Valley, US Steel’s Edgar Thompson Works and Kennywood in the distance, 16 October 2022, 9am (photo by Kate St. John)
Temperature inversions are typical in October and November when warm air above traps cold air at the ground, filling the valleys with haze or fog. In Pittsburgh the pollution from US Steel Clairton Coke Works is also trapped, intensifying the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the Monongahela Valley.
Weather or not, US Steel Clairton always emits these pollutants. The 16th’s stinky haze capped more than ten days of unusually terrible air pollution from USS Clairton(*). Here’s how bad it was: How Bad has Air Quality Been? H2S Was Below PA Standard For Only 3 Hours This Week. (Note: H2S level is supposed to be below the standard to keep our air clean.)
The air smelled better October 17-20 including on this beautiful morning of October 20.
Sunrise, almost clear, 20 October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yesterday’s pollution was pretty bad. Hoping for better air.
(*) US Steel’s Clairton Coke Works is the largest coking facility in the U.S., baking coal to make coke for steel production. Coking removes coal’s impurities by turning them into gases including stinky hydrogen sulfide (H2S). In March 2022 Allegheny County Health Department reported that “Based on all available data and resources, H2S exceedances that occurred at the Liberty site during the period of Jan. 1, 2020, through March 1, 2022, can be attributed entirely to emissions originating at US Steel’s Clairton coking facility.”
No matter where they live beavers (Castor canadensis) must gnaw wood every day to wear down their constantly growing front teeth. In captivity they are given wood to keep their teeth healthy.
A beaver in rehab doesn’t have to make a dam but it’s obviously an instinct that’s hard to deny. He builds a dam at the doorway.
Busy as a beaver!
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, embedded video from YouTube)
Just over a week ago the Cornell Lab of Ornithology published the 2022 State of the Birds in the U.S. The news was sobering. Population declines of 90 bird species have reached a tipping point into endangered status, having lost half or more of their populations since 1970.
70 of these species are on a trajectory to lose another 50% of their populations in the next 50 years if nothing changes. (That means losing another half of what’s left!) The slideshow above shows ten of my favorites that are falling off the cliff into the sixth mass extinction.
Of the 20 remaining species whose future is bleak I will especially miss the black-billed cuckoo, snowy owl, red-headed woodpecker, olive-sided flycatcher, wood thrush, and mourning, cerulean and Canada warblers.
Fortunately Cornell Lab describes actions we can take right now to turn this around, illustrating The Road to Recovery with one of the greatest recoveries of our lifetime: the peregrine falcon. We made a difference in the last 50 years and we can do it again. Click here to learn what you can do to help birds.
Peregrine falcon feeding young at Tarentum Bridge, May 2021 (photo by Lynn Mamros)
(photo credits in the captions. All of these photos were used in prior articles.)
On 7 October 2022 a STAT Medevac helicopter had to make an emergency landing in Greenfield Township in Erie County, PA because it hit a flock of geese. One of the geese crashed through the bubble on the pilot’s side. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.
The first responders, Greenfield Township Volunteer Fire Company, posted this report on Facebook. Two more helicopters came to the aid of the first one: One to take the patient to the proper destination and one to evacuate the crash crew.
Two photos supplied by Mary Brush at StatMedEvac Pittsburgh show the damage to the helicopter. On the right you can see the hole in pilot’s-side windshield.
You may be surprised that Canada geese were flying at night but this is normal during fall migration. That night in Erie County the wind was from the northwest, perfect for heading south.
Geese are not nocturnal birds but are known to fly at night when they migrate south in autumn. There are three main reasons behind their nightly migratory routine: to escape their diurnal predators, to avoid thermal interruption, and to benefit from the cooler winds of nighttime.
Nighttime bird crashes are rare nowadays because aircraft are supplied with Pulselite equipment that helps the birds visually locate the aircraft. Pulselites also make it easier for humans to do the same.
When I attended the Southwest Wings Birding Festival in Arizona in the summer of 2015, I saw 33 Life Birds(*) including an elegant trogon and a violet-crowned hummingbird. Seven years later I will gain a 34th Life Bird for that trip without doing anything. The eastern meadowlarks I saw in Santa Cruz County, Arizona will become a new species. eBird will change them for me this month.
This month eBird will update the taxonomy in its extensive checklist database to reflect the latest ‘splits’, ‘lumps’, additions of new species, changes to scientific names, taxonomic sequence, and more.
The full 2022 eBird Taxonomy Update is scheduled to begin on 25 October. Changes may begin as early as 15 October. The process is expected to take up to a week including intermediate steps. Submit all “Not Submitted” mobile checklists by 24 October.
Please DO NOT EDIT your personal records if you notice them changing. Reach out to eBird if you have questions.
Many changes will be minor, affecting only the scientific names. Here are two examples from my own Life List.
The violet-crowned hummingbird, Leucolia violiceps, was placed in an “unavailable” genus so this month it will become Ramosomyia violiceps on my Southwest Wings checklist.
The mottled owl I saw in Costa Rica in 2017 was Ciccaba virgata at the time, but Ciccaba is now absorbed into Strix so the mottled owl will become Strix virgata. In the Strix genus it joins an owl it resembles, the barred owl (Strix varia).
The biggest change for me will be the long anticipated split of the eastern meadowlark. The Lilianae group — formerly a subspecies that I saw in Arizona — will become the Chihuahuan Meadowlark (Sturnella lilianae). Here’s how it looks on my life list today (18 October 2022). Soon it will change. Click here to see the Chihuahuan meadowlark’s range on eBird.
Eastern meadowlark sightings in eBird (data from Kate St. John)
It’s wonderful that I can enter a sighting 7 years ago(!) that becomes a Life Bird all on its own.
