Time for a quiz!
Name at least 5 bird species found on every continent except Antarctica. Hint: One of them is my favorite bird.
Leave a comment with your answer. (My answer will be in the comments, too.)
(map from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
The seeds of tall goldenrod look like tassels in the winter.
… Until they blow away in the wind.
p.s. Goldenrods are notoriously difficult to identify. I’m merely guessing that this is Tall Goldenrod.
(photo by Kate St. John)
If you’re planning to be here four billion years from now you’ll see an amazing slow-motion sky show when two galaxies collide — Andromeda and our own Milky Way.
What will the sky look like when that happens? (very amazing!)
Will it be dangerous for Earth? (probably not)
How many years before this happens?
Billions and billions.
(video posted in June 2012 by SpaceRip on YouTube)
Today’s University Times has a great article by Kimberly Barlow about the crows who roost on the University of Pittsburgh campus.
Click here to read Annual crow stopover makes work for Facilities.
(photo by Aimee Obidzinski/Photographic Services, linked from the University Times article)
Yesterday morning I joined Bob Mulvihill (National Aviary), Jason Martin (M&P Security Solutions) and Phil Hieber (University of Pittsburgh Facilities Management) at the Pitt peregrine nest box for annual maintenance of the nest and cams. We planned to cover the slippery plastic-pipe front perch, assess the gravel’s condition, and clean the webcams.
The top perch turf was loose so Bob reattached it with zip ties, above. Then he began to wrap the lower perch with thick sisal rope that’s used at the Aviary for birds of prey.
Meanwhile I took measurements.
Unfortunately the pipe circumference is 5.5 inches and the rope was too short. (We wish we’d had those measurements ahead of time!) Bob zip-tied the old plastic turf back in place and drilled new holes under the gravel to improve drainage.
The resident female peregrine, Hope, zoomed by several times so Jason held up the broom to protect our heads. Thankfully she never came close.
Then Jason examined the cameras and cleaned the domes …
… and added more pea gravel to the nest surface. (Thank you, Phil.)
We were all done by 11:10am.
Two and a half hours later Hope stopped by to check out the new digs.
Thank you, Bob, Jason, and Phil, for all your help.
It’s looking good!
(photos by Bob Mulvihill and the National Aviary snapshot camera at University of Pittsburgh)
Here’s amazing news: Seabird colonies help keep the Arctic cool.
Seabirds gather on Arctic islands to breed during the summer. Thousands of them nest close together and produce a lot of guano (bird poop).
Atmospheric scientists studying the Arctic noticed summertime bursts of ammonia-based particulate. These tiny particles cause clouds to form because they gather moisture as they move through the air. The clouds reflect sunlight and keep the land and water cool.
Where does the ammonia come from? It wafts off the guano at the seabird colonies.
These findings were published on 15 November 2016 in Nature Communications. Read the summary here at Science Daily.
(photo of little auks, Alle alle, at breeding colony on Svalbard by Alastair Rae from London, UK via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
Last week I told you why museum collections are valuable. Today I’ll show you what’s in them.
Bird collections are like libraries. Instead of books on shelves, they have study skins in drawers.
These two drawers at Carnegie Museum contain study skins of the scarlet tanagers collected in western Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1995. The drawers are partly obscured but together they hold approximately 100 Piranga olivacea study skins collected during a period of almost 120 years. The average speed of collecting was very slow: less than 1 bird per year in a 16,000 square mile area.
Study skins are all prepared the same way. The dead bird is skinned, the body and skeleton removed leaving the skin, feathers, beak and lower legs. It’s then stuffed with cotton and sewn up. When completed the skin is positioned on its back with wings folded and beak extended so that it fits in a drawer.
Study skins play a key role in the definition of bird species. To determine a new taxon ornithologists examine many skins. Then for each taxon one study skin on earth is chosen as the holotype for that bird, the single physical example used to describe the genus-species-subspecies.
The tropical parula above is the holotype for the elegans subspecies. Housed at Carnegie Museum, it has two descriptive tags.
The white collection tag lists the specimen number, when, where, and who collected it: Number 36953, collected 21 Feb 1911 at Anzoategui, Venezuela by M.A. Carriker, Jr.
The blue holotype tag includes its scientific name, who described it, and where and when its description was published: W. E. Clyde Todd, Annals of Carnegie Museum, vol VIII, 1912, page 204. Only holotypes have the blue tag.
Because holotypes are physical examples, they can be re-examined as we learn new scientific techniques. In 1912 this bird’s scientific name was Compsothlypis pitiayumi elegans or Parula pitiayumi elegans. Since then ornithologists have learned about DNA and placed him in the Setophaga genus with the other warblers. Today his scientific name is Setophaga pitiayumi elegans.
Steve Rogers manages the herpetology and bird collections at the Carnegie and showed me how museums share their data via the iDigBio.org portal. Researchers can look up a species of interest on the website and find every study skin on earth including tag data and museum location. Here’s what the initial search result looks like for the species pitiayumi
Steve receives several requests a day from scientists around the world who need more data or want to visit the Carnegie’s collection.
Study skins are indeed studied.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Canada geese challenge their enemies by honking and rushing forward with head low, mouth open and tongue raised. Normally we humans don’t see this up close but a goose challenged David Amamoto and revealed its amazing tongue to the camera.
Since Canada geese don’t have hands, their mouths are equipped with the tools they need for plucking grasses, sedges, grains and berries on land and in the water.
Their bills are serrated for cutting stems and threshing grain. Their tongues have serrated edges for sieving water from each mouthful of underwater food. The tongue’s crosswise bumps help grip the vegetation.
Food doesn’t get away from this serrated tongue.
Fortunately David escaped without being nipped.
(photo by David Amamoto)
4 December 2016
If you have a cat, I’m sure you’ve seen it sniff something and then raise its head with its mouth open as shown in the video above.
This gesture is called the flehmen response or flehmening and it’s how cats inhale and analyze pheromones.
Many mammals flehmen in response to pheromone laden scents. They bare their teeth, close their nostrils and breathe through their mouths to direct the scent into the vomeronasal organ (VNO) located above the roof of the mouth. In felines, there’s a duct just behind their front teeth that leads to the VNO.
Horses flehmen, too. When I was a kid there was a TV show called Mister Ed, the Talking Horse, whose face looked like this when he “talked.”
Now that I’ve seen this photo, I’ll bet the trainers put an interesting smell under Mister Ed’s nose to provoke the flehmen response. And they said he was “talking.”
(video by Kyle Hayes on YouTube. photo of horse flehmen response from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original) flemen
.jpg)
‘Tis the season to count birds.
The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is an annual year-end tradition of tallying birds, now in its 117th year. Each count is a 15-mile diameter circle manned by volunteers who count the birds they see in a single 24-hour period.
There are 14 counts planned for the Pittsburgh area between now and early January. See the table below for the list and click here for a map of the local count circles compiled by Bob Mulvihill at the National Aviary.
It’s easy to participate and no experience is necessary! You can count at your own feeders or go out in the field, paired with another birder.
Call the compiler ahead of time to let him know you’re coming, especially if the count will be held over the holidays. The Pittsburgh Count on December 31 has so many participants that each section has its own compiler. Click here for the sections and contacts.
I’ll be counting in the Pittsburgh circle.
I hope to see you in the field.
2016 Christmas Bird Counts in the Pittsburgh Area
| Date | County | CBC Name | Compiler | Contact Info |
| Sat. 12/17/2016 | Beaver | Beaver | Rick Mason | 724-847-0909 richarddmason@gmail.com |
| 12/17 | Butler, Lawrence, Mercer |
Butler | Glenn Koppel Mary A Koeneke |
703-203-3362 kestrel22@hotmail.com 703-203-6337 macatilly@icloud.com |
| 12/17 | Butler, Armstrong |
Buffalo Creek Valley | George Reese | 724-353-9649 g.reese@gaiconsultants.com |
| 12/17 | Allegheny, Washington |
Pittsburgh South Hills | Nancy Page | 412-221-4795 |
| 12/17 | Greene | Ryerson | Marjorie Howard | 724-852-3155 birdwatcher108@comcast.net |
| 12/17 | Washington | Washington | Tom Contreras | 724-223-6118 tcontreras@washjeff.edu |
| Sun. 12/18/2016 | Allegheny, Washington |
Imperial | Bob Mulvihill | robert.mulvihill@gmail.com |
| 12/18 | Greene | Clarksville | Terry Dayton | 724-627-9665 tdayton@windstream.net |
| 12/18 | Washington | Buffalo Creek | Larry Helgerman | 412-508-0321 bobolink1989@gmail.com |
| Mon. 12/26/2016 | Indiana | Indiana | Roger & Margaret Higbee | 724-354-3493 bcoriole@windstream.net |
| Wed. 12/28/2016 | Westmoreland | Bushy Run | Dick Byers | 724-593-3543 otusasio@lhtot.com |
| Sat. 12/31/2016 | Allegheny | Pittsburgh | Brian Shema | 412-963-6100 bshema@aswp.org There are compilers for each section of the circle. Click here for details. |
| Mon. 1/2/2017 | Westmoreland | Rector | Matt Webb | 412-622-5591 webbm@carnegiemnh.org |
| Sat. 1/7/2017 | Butler | South Butler | Chris Kubiak | 412-963-6100 ckubiak@aswp.org |
Read more about the Christmas Bird Count here at audubon.org.
(photo by Gary Peeples www.fws.gov/asheville/ via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)