6 September 2025
This week I couldn’t help but notice the landscape looks very dry and plants are wilting.
And now it’s official. Pennsylvania is in a moderate drought in Elk, Cameron, northwest Clearfield, western Allegheny, Beaver and Greene counties. Notice the pink arrows I added to this map from U.S. Drought Monitor at UNL.
Dry weather hasn’t stopped the insects.
Gabrielle Marsden (@gobbism on Instagram) raises many kinds of butterflies, especially zebra swallowtails. She brought three adults to Schenley Park to release during the Botanical Society walk last Sunday. (See top photo) The butterflies’ host plant, the pawpaw tree, grows in Schenley.
Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania walks focus on plants but the outings do not ignore the rest of nature. Bugs are often associated with specific plants so when we found cool bugs we took a look … and found a planthopper. He was easy to see because his bright green disguise doesn’t work in a drought.
We also found the remnants of a scissor-grinder cicada who left his exoskeleton behind on a leaf.
Sometimes the bugs found us. Steve Tirone had to stop in his tracks to avoid hurting the katydid on his shoe.
p.s. I forgot to tell you what we saw on the Schenley Park outing last Sunday, 31 August.
The birds were quiet and generally hard to find. We saw only 15 species. Best Birds were two immature red-tailed hawks that chased each other.
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 75 on Flagstaff Hill
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 3
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 2 Immature hawks lazily chasing each other up the creek
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 3
Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) 2
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) 6
Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus) 1
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 8
Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) 1
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 20
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 25
House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) 16
American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 3
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 4 Adult & fledgling were not the color we expected. Both had a rumpled appearance as if they got dirty somehow.
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 4
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S270721752
Thank you for mentioning the zebra swallotail! Here’s a couple articles related to its extirpation both in Pittsburgh and Toronto!
The event that led to me raising them
https://www.publicsource.org/zebra-swallowtail-butterfly-pittsburgh-pawpaw-diversity/
And Toronto!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rare-butterfly-in-high-park-toronto-after-over-century-1.7613900
As administrator of Pittsbugh’s largest native plant group (Pittsburgh Area Native Plant Group on Facebook), we focus on how interconnected native plants are to native insects. The changes in precipitation and its impact on our ecosystem in our region can’t be ignored.