Monthly Archives: November 2015

The Odd Goose

Migration, Water and Shore
Domestic goose and wild ancestor, the greylag goose (photos from Wikimedia Commons)
Domestic goose and wild ancestor, the greylag goose (photos from Wikimedia Commons)

10 November 2015

Have you ever seen an all-white goose hanging out with mallards and Canada geese during the summer?

Even though most of us are unfamiliar with barnyard geese it doesn’t take long to find out the white ones are escaped domestic waterfowl that naturally prefer the places where people feed ducks. Their scientific name is Anser anser domesticus (shown at left above), the same genus and species as their wild ancestor the greylag goose (Anser anser, shown at right).

Greylag geese are mottled gray-brown with paler breasts and bellies, orange bills, and pink legs.  Native to Europe and Asia they were domesticated about 4,000 years ago for their meat and eggs.  In addition to food, they’re useful as Watch Geese, quick to sound the alarm and chase off intruders.  The Roman historian, Livy, wrote that domestic geese saved Rome by warning of a night attack by the Gauls.

Selective breeding has given domestic geese bulky bodies and big butts but they are not always white and that causes identification problems.  Not only do some resemble their wild ancestors but geese freely hybridize.  When a barnyard goose mates with a Canada goose they produce some really odd offspring.  Click here for pictures of the many strange results.

If you find a gray-brown goose in western Pennsylvania your field guide will suggest the greater white-fronted goose but be careful before you decide that’s what you’ve found.

Greater white-fronted geese (detail from Crossley ID Guide for Eastern Birds)
Greater white-fronted geese (detail from Crossley ID Guide Eastern Birds via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) breed in the arctic tundra and winter in Mexico and west of the Mississippi.  They’re a rare bird in western Pennsylvania so check carefully for a white forehead and base of bill, lots of black mottling on the belly, a smaller bill (than domestic geese) and less bulk.

Here’s the “white front” that gave them their name.  (I added the red arrow.)

Greater white-fronted goose (detail from the Crossley ID Guide Eastern Birds, arrow added to indicate white front)
Greater white-fronted goose (detail from the Crossley ID Guide Eastern Birds via Wikimedia Commons. Arrow added to indicate white front.)

Chances are an odd goose seen in Pittsburgh has domestic relatives but take a really good look.  You never know …

(photos from Wikimedia Commons. Click on these links to see the originals: wild greylag goose, domestic goose, greater white-fronted geese from the Crossley ID Guide Eastern Birds)

Eight Years Outside My Window

Books & Events

Happy 8th Bird-thday!

Eight years ago today I posted my first blog at Outside My Window.  Back then I wrote three times a week, then increased to daily for the past 5+ years.

People sometimes ask me, “What does it take to write a successful blog?” I don’t know the answer for everyone, but here’s what I do:

Every day I get up at 5:00am to write for three hours, usually longer, finalizing today’s post and prepping tomorrow’s.  When I’m outdoors I note topics of interest for future use.  If I don’t have any ideas at 5:00am — yes, it happens! — I dip into my notes and hope for inspiration. My Muse is really good during Peregrine Season but she loses interest in the winter.  Don’t we all!

This year the Muse inspired some lively posts and discussions.  Her statistics show …

Thanks to you, my readers, for 8 years together. You keep me going every day!

And a very special thank you to the many photographers who allow me to use their photos and videos on the site.

Happy 8th Bird-thday to all of us!

(party crows by Joan Guerin)

p.s. Today is my blog’s birthday; my own birthday is in May.  🙂

Neck And Legs Extended

Beyond Bounds, Water and Shore

Greater Flamingoes, Walvis Bay, Namibia (photo by Yathin S Krishnappa from Wikimedia Commons)
Greater Flamingoes, Walvis Bay, Namibia (photo by Yathin S Krishnappa from Wikimedia Commons)

You’ll never see these birds in the wild in Pennsylvania.

Flying with legs and necks extended these greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) — an adult and sub-adult — are at Walvis Bay in Namibia, Africa.

Pennsylvania does have a large native bird that flies this way with neck and legs extended.  It breeds in western PA and has been seen in Crawford County recently.

Can you guess the species?

 

(photo by Yathin S Krishnappa from Wikimedia Commons.Click on the image to see the original)

The Right Wind

Birds of Prey, Books & Events

The view from the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch (photo by Kate St. John)
The view from the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch (photo by Kate St. John)

Though many birds have migrated away from Pennsylvania our hawk watch sites are still going strong.  November brings more red-tails, sharp-shinned hawks, and this month’s main attraction — golden eagles.

The Allegheny Front Hawk Watch, pictured above, was particularly good for golden eagles earlier this week (27 of them on Tuesday!) when the wind was from the southeast.

Southeast?

It doesn’t make sense that we’d watch hawks flying into a head wind until you realize that this beautiful view at the Allegheny Front is facing east.  There’s no mountain edge on the west, just the Allegheny Plateau, so the best winds for watching are those with an easterly component that create an updraft and lift the hawks right above our heads.

Yesterday the weather changed, so the wind is now from the west and north. Other sites will be better for hawk watching.

Today and tomorrow, 11/7 and 11/8, the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology is visiting Waggoner’s Gap Hawk Watch near Carlisle, PA.  This site is on a ridgetop with great views in all directions and lots of raptors passing through in November, especially on a northwest wind.  At this time of year Waggoner’s Gap often has the highest hawk count of any watch in the state.

For the best raptor viewing, pick a site with the right wind.

 

(photo by Kate St. John)

What Happens At A Clearcut?

Bird Behavior, Mammals, Musings & News, Trees

Tree removal project at Central Catholic, 30 Oct 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)

Before I retired from WQED in September 2014, this was the view outside my window … except there were trees.

Last month contractors removed all the trees on the hillside between CMU’s new Tepper Quad and Central Catholic’s football field.  By the time I saw it a week ago it looked like this.

Hillside denuded by tree removal project at Central Catholic, 30 Oct 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)

To give you an idea of what it used to look like, here’s a view of the remaining trees behind WQED.

Trees remaining on hillside behind WQED, 30 Oct 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)

In the grand scheme of things this was a small woodlot surrounded by parking lots and an astroturf field, host to many invasive species.

Does it matter that humans removed this small landscape?

It does to the animals who lived there.

In the remaining woodlot behind WQED two squirrels fought a territorial battle. The loud one said, “This is mine! You have to leave!” The other cowered but stayed nearby. Probably a refugee.

Winter or a predator will determine who survives.

 

(photos by Kate St. John)

p.s. Does anyone know whose project this is (CMU or Central Catholic?) and why it was done?

UPDATE:  I haven’t been back to the site for a week but friends confirm that this is a CMU project and that all the trees are gone now.  Every single one.

Land-pipers

Bird Behavior, Songbirds

Starlings in monochrome (photo by Mr. T in DC, via Flickr, Creative Commons license)
Starlings in monochrome (photo by Mr. T in DC, via Flickr, Creative Commons license)

In Pittsburgh we don’t have sandpipers but in the winter we have something similar.  Can we call them “land-pipers?”

Click here for a Throw Back Thursday article from 2008 about our substitute for shorebirds: Land-pipers.

 

UPDATE:  Richard Nugent suggests they be called “lawn-pipers.”   Excellent name!

(photo by “Mr. T in DC”, via Flickr, Creative Commons license. Click on the image to see the original.)

Teens Drink More In Crowds

Mammals
Black-6 mouse, C57BL/6 (image from The Jackson Laboratory, linked from ScienceNode.org)
Black-6 mouse, C57BL/6 (image from The Jackson Laboratory used via ScienceNode.org)

4 November 2015

Duh!  “Teens drink more in crowds” is not earth-shattering news.  The news is that when these mice are teenagers they, too, drink more in crowds.

The discovery was made while looking for something else.

In 2013 psychologists Laurence Steinberg and Jason Chein of Temple University asked the question, “Does verbal peer pressure make teens drink more, or is it actions and not words that prompt them to do it?”  Since it’s impossible to run a controlled non-verbal test on drinking humans, they looked for a critter that voluntarily drinks alcohol.

Enter Mouse C57BL/6, otherwise known as Black-6, the most studied mouse on earth.  He’s an inbred lab mouse known for obesity, alcohol consumption, morphine addiction, a weakened immune system, pain sensitivity, atherosclerosis and age-related hearing loss.  And he can’t use verbal peer pressure. “We chose mice for this experiment, said Steinberg, “because mice don’t know what their friends want them to do.”

Science Daily explains what happened,

For the study, a sample of mice were raised in same-sex triads and were tested for alcohol consumption either as juveniles or as adults, with half in each age group tested alone and half tested with their agemates. The researchers found that the presence of “peers” increased alcohol consumption only among adolescent mice.

They published their findings two years ago in Developmental Science as: Adolescent mice, unlike adults, consume more alcohol in the presence of peers than alone.  I learned about it when I read Elizabeth Kolbert’s August article in The New Yorker:  The Terrible Teens.

The mice had a good time and no one got hurt.  Fortunately mice can’t drink and drive.

(photo linked from the article From Mice To Men at ScienceNode.org, where it was posted courtesy of The Jackson Laboratory. Click on the image to see the original article at Science Node)

55 Years Ago Today: A Victory For Birds

Books & Events
Misty Morning at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (photo by Billtacular via Flickr Creative Commons license)
Misty Morning at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (photo by Billtacular via Flickr Creative Commons license)

November 3, 2015:

Fifty-five years ago today an Act of Congress preserved this place in Morris County, New Jersey for wildlife.  It was a victory for the land, water, birds, mammals, plants and everything living in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

What good is a swamp?

In 1959 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey thought the Great Swamp would be the perfect place for a huge new airport to serve metro New York.  After all, swamps are useless until they’re drained and filled and cease to be swamps … right?  The residents disagreed.

Can an individual make a difference?

You bet!  The swamp would have become an airport, but four women stood up and said no.  Residents Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White found out about a December 3, 1959 meeting, not open to the public, that was intended to promote the airport’s construction.  They went to the meeting and got thrown out of it.  The newspapers picked up the story, opposition to the airport mobilized, and within a year supporters of the Great Swamp had bought enough land to make it a National Wildlife Refuge.  Morris County would have been blindsided if four women hadn’t made the news.

Today the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge is a 7,768-acre patch of undeveloped land in a sea of suburbs.  Half the land is a Wilderness Area, a quiet haven for wildlife.  Though it’s only 26 miles west of New York’s Times Square it’s a great place to find birds, especially during waterfowl migration when ducks and geese stop by to rest and refuel.  244 species have been tallied at Great Swamp NWR.

Thanks to the hard work of dedicated people 55 years ago, this land is wild today.  It was a victory on so many fronts, and in retrospect a victory for birds.

 

p.s. See the comment, here, describing Dorothy Whitehead’s efforts.

(photo by Billtacular via Flickr Creative Commons license. Click on the image to see the original)

What The Heck Are They Saying?

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens

Cawing about ... what? (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Cawing about … what? (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

 

In case you haven’t noticed yet, the winter crow flock is back in town.  They’ve been in the East End of Pittsburgh since at least October 15 but our daily rounds have been out of synch with their activities until now.

Today, with sunrise and sunset an hour earlier, we’ll see the crows commuting during rush hour and we’ll certainly hear them.  Why are they so loud in the morning?  What the heck are they saying?

Last month I participated in a live Cornell Lab of Ornithology webinar on Understanding Bird Behavior by crow expert, Kevin McGowan.  He gave tips on observing birds with examples of what the behaviors mean. McGowan was especially insightful on the subject of crows.

Most of the time cawing pretty much means “Hey! Hey! HEY!” but in the morning crows take a neighborhood census.  McGowan suggested their conversation goes something like this:

Hey, Bob, did you die last night?

I’m alive! So don’t bother coming over and trying to take things.  And leave my mate alone.

 

In the quick YouTube video below McGowan describes crow and raven vocalizations.  We don’t know exactly what they’re saying but we can often guess.

 

Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a wide selection of educational webinars that you can watch any time for a small fee.  Click here to see what’s on offer.

Now What?

Plants & Fungi

Halloween pumpkins, uncarved (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Halloween pumpkins, uncarved (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Our Halloween pumpkins have reverted to vegetables.  Let me be the first to suggest what to do with them now that the holiday is over.

Did you carve the pumpkin?  It’ll rot soon.  You could throw it in a garbage bag for the landfill or …

Carved pumpkin, rotting (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

  • Compost it.
  • Cut it up and feed it to wildlife. (Don’t litter, though.)
  • Bury it in your garden to enrich the soil.

Is it uncarved?  Then it’ll last longer “as is” or you can open and eat it.

  • Continue to use the pumpkin as a decoration until it begins to decay.
  • Bake and puree the flesh to turn it into pumpkin pie, etc.
  • Toast and eat the seeds.

For a really good list, see Jessica’s 2014 post at BrightNest:  7 things to do with your old pumpkin

 

(photos from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the images to see the originals)