8 October 2024
Bird migration was intense over Pittsburgh on Friday night, 4 October, when more than 20,000 songbirds flew south overhead. We saw the results on Saturday morning in Frick Park where a new cohort of species had arrived with good news: Some of them were eating spotted lanternflies!
The new species included ruby-crowned kinglets, white-throated sparrows, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and yellow-rumped (myrtle) warblers. The mix was quite a change from September’s warblers.
Most of the new arrivals were feeding on tiny insects but the juvenile sapsucker, pictured above, was attracted to sweet lanternfly honeydew on ailanthus trees. He was too young to have ever seen a spotted lanternfly but he was curious. “Are these edible?”
Yes.
Perhaps the sapsucker got the idea from a northern cardinal that ate a lanternfly further down the trail. (I don’t have a photo of that incident; this one is from iNaturalist, New York.)
Olive-sided flycatchers eat spotted lanternflies, too, though they don’t contribute much in Pittsburgh because they are rare here.
However, when an olive-sided flycatcher was passing through Howard County, Maryland in early September Mei Shyong photographed it eating a spotted lanternfly. The thumbnail below is just a hint. Click here or on the image to see her photo at Howard County Conservancy on Facebook.
Kate, I’m hoping you can help me ID the many smallish brown birds, with tan bellies, and I think a black bar on underside of tail, seen today May 23, 2025 swooping over the Westinghouse Pond catching insects I assume. They moved so fast it was hard to give a better description. I have never seen this bird before
I have two guesses and have provided photos:
Northern rough-winged swallows
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Rough-winged_Swallow_From_The_Crossley_ID_Guide_Eastern_Birds.jpg
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Rough-winged_Swallow_(33781080672).jpg
— or —
Cedar Waxwings –>They have lemon-yellow bellies. Though they eat fruit in winter they will catch insects in flight during spring/summer
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cedar_Waxwing_August_14_2012_Newfoundland_PA.jpg
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cedar_Waxwing_3085m.jpg
Kate you are an amazing source of bird knowledge!
Thanks for the leads on the possibilities! I’m pretty sure what I saw was your first guess of a type of Northern Rough Winged Swallow! (I’ve seen Cedar Waxwings in my backyard, so definitely not those)
I read a description for the Northern Rough Winged Swallow that describes what I saw them doing: “Look for them flying low over lakes, ponds, and rivers. They tend to fly lower to the water than other swallows and fly with slower and more deliberate wingbeats. They often occur singly or in small groups”
Thank You! You’re the greatest!