Monthly Archives: November 2016

Exploring The Collection: Birds at the Carnegie

November 20, 2016The Collection at CMNHKate St. John

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History as seen from the lawn at Pitt (photo from Wikimedia Commons) — The Carnegie Museum of Natural History as seen from the lawn at University of Pittsburgh (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

20 November 2016

If you’ve been reading my blog for a couple of years you know that I usually embark on a weekly series in the winter to pull us through the chilly days from November to February. This year is no exception.

Winter is a slow time outdoors so we’ll go indoors on Tuesdays to a place that houses almost 200,000 birds, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH).

Andrew Carnegie founded the museum in 1895. It quickly became famous when their expedition to Utah unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of Diplodocus carnegii in 1899. Today the museum has an excellent collection of birds, herps*, invertebrates, mammals, minerals and mollusks as well as the famous vertebrate paleontology department.

The Carnegie’s bird collection contains more than 198,000 specimens. There are 154,000 study skins behind the scenes and a thousand taxidermy mounts on display in cases, in dioramas, and in educational kits. One third of the specimens are over 100 years old.

You might not think of “watching” birds in a museum but there’s plenty to explore. In the weeks ahead I’ll touch on:

The Golden Age of Collecting.
What good is a museum collection?
What are study skins?
Pennsylvania birds we’ll never see anywhere else.
Curiosities.
Looking for birds in the dioramas.
Birds behind the scenes.

I’ll also hold three indoor outings this winter:

Sunday, 8 January 2017: Scavenger hunt at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Find birds in the exhibits. (You can also visit on your own and report what you find on 8 Jan.)
Sunday, 22 January 2017: National Aviary: Close bird encounters with Outside My Window and Falconuts fans. (space will be limited)
To be announced, mid-to-late February: Behind the scenes at the Carnegie: A guided tour of birds the public rarely sees. (space will be limited)

So while Dippy wears his winter scarf, we’ll learn about his cohorts on Tuesdays.

Outdoor statue of Diplodocus carnegii, named Dippy, wearing a winter scarf at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile you can visit the museum six days a week (it’s closed on Tuesdays). Click here to plan your visit.

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

Herps* is shorthand for reptiles and amphibians.

Burls

November 19, 2016TreesKate St. John

Burl on black locust trunk (photo by Kate St. John)

November’s a good month to get reacquainted with trees. After the leaves are gone unusual features stand out. That’s how I noticed these burls.

Burls are dense growths of deformed-grain wood and failed buds found on tree trunks or roots. They’re a tree’s stress reaction to virus, fungus, bacteria or injury.

The wood in burls is sometimes beautiful but very dense and hard to work with. Some species create particularly beautiful burl wood. My hunch is that these two do not.

Above, a black locust. Below, a white oak.

Burl on white oak (photo by Kate St. John)

Take time this month to look at trees.

(photos by Kate St. John)

We Cannot See The Stars

November 18, 2016Weather & SkyKate St. John

video by Sriram Murali on Vimeo

18 November 2016

Have you ever seen the Milky Way?

That question would have been absurd 200 years ago because billions of stars were visible on every clear night.

But now with the prevalence of artificial outdoor light most of us cannot see the Milky Way and many children don’t know what it is.

Because of this, some ancient stories don’t make sense. In Genesis Abraham worried that he had no heir but God reassured him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. So many shall your descendants be.” Today we look at the sky and count 50 stars, not realizing that Abraham saw millions and was overwhelmed.

So what are we missing? Sriram Murali traveled in California recording time-lapse video of the night sky in places with high light pollution (San Jose) and almost no artificial light (Death Valley).

His video let’s us see the sky as our ancestors did.

Watch the stars come out.

(video by Sriram Murali)

Fox Sparrows Are Passing Through

November 17, 2016Migration, PhenologyKate St. John

I saw my first fox sparrow this fall at Hillman State Park on Sunday, November 13.

Fox sparrows (Passerella iliaca) breed in Canada, Alaska and the northern Rockies and spend the winter in the southern U.S. so we typically only see them on migration in Pittsburgh.

These birds are never numerous and are often hard to find. Sometimes you hear one scratching in dead leaves in the underbrush but he’s well camouflaged. Fortunately the bird at Hillman flew into a tree with a flock of dark-eyed juncos so I could see him. A nice surprise.

Look for surprises among the sparrows this week. Perhaps the ducks and geese will arrive at last.

This phenology for early November still applies because our weather’s been so warm:

What To Look For in Early November

(photo by Steve Gosser)

Putting On His Winter Coat

November 16, 2016MammalsKate St. John

Long-tailed weasel, Calgary, Alberta, 30 Oct 2016 (photo by Dan Arndt)

Oh my! It’s a white weasel in a brown background.

Long-tailed weasels (Mustela frenata), native from Canada to South America, molt twice a year in October-to-mid-November and March-to-April. Those who live in the north turn white, the rest of them stay brown. Here’s what they look like in summer.

On October 30 in Calgary, Alberta, Dan Arndt easily found this long-tailed weasel checking out the scenery near Fish Creek Provincial Park. The weasel had turned mostly white though his back was still pale brown (see below).

Long-tailed weasels are fearless and aggressive, able to kill animals larger than they are, but they’re small enough to fall prey to large mammals, hawks and owls(*). Camouflage is important. Their fur is meant to hide them as they hunt and are hunted.

This weasel turned white right on time but there’s no snow to hide him. The first frost usually occurs in Calgary on September 16 and it snows 3.9″ (10cm) in October, but not this year. The high was 54^oF (12.2^oC) on the day these pictures were taken.

It’s likely that climate change will change northern long-tailed weasels. They’ll probably still molt in October-to-mid-November but without snow to hide them the whitest ones won’t survive. I expect the population will be browner in Canada a century from now.

In the meantime, this one looks annoyed that he’s attracted attention now that he’s put on his winter coat.

(photos by Dan Arndt)

(*) Long-tailed weasels are 12-14″ long but their tails make up 40-70% of their length. Thus their bodies are only 4-8″ long.

Phoebe in Black

November 15, 2016Beyond Bounds, SongbirdsKate St. John

North America’s western birds are often similar to their eastern cousins.

Based on color you might mistake this black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) for a very dark junco but his body shape and habits match the eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe).

Notice his flycatcher beak (not a seed-eating beak) and slightly angular head. Like the eastern phoebe he perches prominently and upright. If we could see him in motion, he’d be fly catching. Right now he has a message for hikers. 😉

You’ll have to go west if you want to see this bird. Native to southwestern Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico and southwest Texas, the black phoebe barely migrates. You can find him year round in Central and South America, too.

Click here for his range map.

(photo by Steve Valasek)

Shuffle At The Pitt Nest

November 14, 2016PeregrinesKate St. John

Unidentified female peregrine courting with Terzo at Cathedral of Learning, 11 Nov 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Unidentified female peregrine with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ. of Pittsburgh)

Last weekend there was a shuffle at the Cathedral of Learning peregrine nest. A new female came to visit.

On Friday afternoon Carol D. noticed something unusual and sent me this comment:

[11/11/2016] I was watching the Pitt falcon cam this afternoon and Terzo was at the nest. At about 1:00 you could see the shadow of another falcon land on the ledge out of sight of the camera. After a short time, it came into the nest and didn’t act like Hope. I couldn’t see the legs very well, but it didn’t look like it was banded. I took a screenshot of it and compared it to one (of the many) that I have of Hope and it wasn’t her. She has a white chest area with few brown dots and comparing this screenshot with hers, the one that was there with Terzo had more of a cream colored chest with a lot of brown spots. I was just wondering if you or anyone else noticed this.

No one else reported it but thanks to Carol’s tip we knew where to look. I pulled the motion detection snapshots while Pittsburgh Falconuts friends made a video bookmark here: Terzo and friend at scrape.

Who was this female visitor? Here’s what we know.

Her face has a faint peachy color. (Notice the area between her nape and malar stripe in the next two photos.)

Unidentified female peregrine with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Unidentified female peregrine with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016

She appears to be unbanded. You can see one bare leg while she’s perched below, and both bare legs in the next snapshot.

Unbanded female peregrine with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Female peregrine with spotted breast and unbanded leg(s). With Terzo in background, 11 Nov 2016

And just as Carol said, her chest plumage is peachy-colored with many dots.

Unidentified female with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016 (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh) — Unidentified female with Terzo, 11 Nov 2016

Even though she’s unbanded her appearance is so unique we’ll be able to recognize her if she returns.

And, yes, she is gone. The shuffle was temporary. 24 hours later Hope was back at the nest.

(photos from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ. of Pittsburgh)

Mystery At Tarentum

November 13, 2016PeregrinesKate St. John

Peregrine falcon 4-/BR at Tarentum Bridge, 6 Nov 2016 (photo by Anthony Bruno)

Last Sunday, 6 November 2016, Tony Bruno photographed a peregrine falcon that’s been hanging out at the Tarentum Bridge. His photo is beautiful and tantalizing. You can almost read her bands.

Even at high resolution all we can see is black/green, 4??/BR. There’s a digit after the 4 but the bird’s feathers cover most of the number.

The black/green 40-series/BR means she’s a female from Pennsylvania but without the last digit we don’t know who she is. Art McMorris, the PA Game Commission’s Peregrine Coordinator, examined the photo closely and wrote:

I agree that the bottom combination is BR, which means that it’s one of my bands. And the first digit on top is clearly a 4. However, I’m not so sure about the second digit. I see what you mean about it maybe being a 4, but I think that 2 is also possible, and even more likely, but I can’t be sure. I’m comparing your photo with bands that I have, and looking at the shapes of the digits.

What I can say is that the bird is a female, from Pennsylvania, banded in either 2014 or 2015. As Kate mentioned, 44/BR is from the Glenfield [Neville Island] I-79 Ohio River Bridge in 2015. 42/BR is from the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, also in 2015.

So now we wait for more sightings of this peregrine and another great photograph to learn her identity.

What we do know is this: She’s not Hope, 69/Z, who sometimes returns to Tarentum for a visit. Hope “owned” the Tarentum Bridge for six years before she moved to the Cathedral of Learning 12 months ago.

(photo by Anthony Bruno)

November Primrose

November 12, 2016Phenology, Plants & FungiKate St. John

Evening primrose, 9 Nov 2016 (photo by Kate St.John)

This common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) was blooming on Wednesday, November 9 along the Nine Mile Run Trail in Frick Park.

Last night’s low of 30^oF produced a light frost. I wonder if these flowers are still there.

(photo by Kate St. John)

Spring Tide In November

November 11, 2016Water and Shore, Weather & SkyKate St. John

Spring tide Wimereux, France, Sept 2007 (photo from Wikimedia Commons) — Spring tide at Wimereux, France, Sept 2007 (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Despite the fact that it’s autumn we’re going to have a spring tide next week.

In this case the word “spring” has nothing to do with the season. Instead it means the ocean will be “springing up” in the highest high tide.

Spring tides occur a day or two after a full moon and are highest when the moon is closest to Earth at perigee. On Monday the moon will be full and at its closest perigee since 1948. Watch for nuisance flooding on Tuesday in low-lying coastal communities.

Perigee also makes the moon look larger, an effect called the supermoon. Here are two photos of the full moon in 2007, perigee on the left on October 26, apogee (furthest) on the right on April 3.

Size comparison of full moon at perigee versus apogee (image from Wikimedia Commons)

The difference is about 30,000 miles. Closer objects look larger. (Duh!)

If you miss this supermoon you’ll have to wait 18 years for it to be this close again.

Read more about November’s supermoon and spring tide at earthsky.org.

(images from Wikimedia Commons. Click on each one to see its original.)