Freshwater mussels are the unsung heroes of our waterways. They keep the water clean for fish and the aquatic insects they feed on and, because they filter water through their bodies, they are the first to die when the water becomes polluted.
Look how fast they clean the water!
If a freshwater stream doesn’t have mussels it’s hard for native fish to survive. That’s why the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission converted the fish hatchery at Union City into a mussel propagation center and are restocking mussels in our creeks.
On Tuesday I saw a monarch butterfly fly past my 6th floor window on its journey south. Every night that butterfly it will rest in sheltering vegetation and feed on flowers the next day. But what if those amenities aren’t available?
On Wednesday I noticed landscaping staff clearing a garden in front of an Oakland office building. Monthly gardening schedules, sometimes based on pre-climate change temperatures, call for clearing the garden or changing the plants in October. Salvia looks “leggy” now. Perhaps they were going to plant chrysanthemums.
Fortunately Saving Monarchs sends this helpful Facebook reminder for all gardeners. Take a break and let your garden sleep in!
Some have messaged me asking if they can buy the sign, yes, they’re available for purchase. The large aluminum signs measure 18”x 12” are 50 plus shipping. I also make them in pvc size 9” x 11.5” and are 25 plus shipping. No extra shipping if you purchase more than 1. Obviously, due to shipping costs no posts are included, just the signs. Message [Saving Monarchs on Facebook] if you’re interested.
Read more about the benefits of leaving the leaves for insects, pollinators, birds, and even salamanders.
(*) p.s. I used a screenshot of the Saving Monarchs sign because Facebook’s embedded posts do not display on mobile devices.
The diagram above, from Arizona State University’s Ask A Biologist, shows that beneath our skin humans, birds and bats all have the same bones in our arms/wings but the bones have evolved to match our lifestyles.
We humans use our arms to reach and our hands to grab and manipulate. Birds and bats use their “arms” for flying. You can see it in our bones.
Each bone has changed compared to humans.
Big changes start at the wrist with huge changes in the “hands” and fingers.
Birds have only two “fingers” and their “thumbs” (the alula) are used only for slow flight maneuvers.
Did you know that Tyrannosaurus rex was exclusively(*) a North American dinosaur?
He lived during the Campanian–Maastrichtian ages of the late Cretaceousperiod, 72.7 to 66 million years ago, on the former island continent of Laramidia which is now the western part of North America extending from Canada to Mexico.
Fifty years ago paleontologists found fossils of a T-Rex relative in Baja California, Mexico: Labocania anomala.
This year they analyzed bones in a drawer at the Museo del Desierto that had been found in the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico in 2000. The bones were from a new-to-science relative of T-Rex!
Named Labocania aguillonae, the ancient predator was at least 6.3 m (21 feet) in length — relatively small by tyrannosaur standards [and] closely related to Labocania anomala, Bistahieversor sealeyi, and Teratophoneus curriei.
Unlike its heavily built cousin [T-Rex], this animal was long-legged and lightly built, with big eyes that may have helped it hunt in low light and a heavy snout for dispatching helpless prey.
… The species has been named Labocania aguillonae after Martha Carolina Aguillón, the local paleontologist who discovered it [in 2000].
Yesterday afternoon a black tern (Chlidonias niger) made Allegheny County’s Rare Bird Alert when it was spotted at the main pond at Imperial. Immediately I thought of the black terns I’ve seen during spring migration at the Great Lakes with gorgeous black heads and bellies.
In early September their bellies and faces turn white, like this one in Chipiona in early September 2024.
As time passes they become even paler. If you happened to see the black tern at Imperial yesterday it would look more like this.
Black terns live in both the New and Old Worlds. The North American subspecies (C. n. surinamensis) spends the winter on the coasts of Central and South America. The Eurasian subspecies (C. n. niger) migrates across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast to Africa.
They don’t look like “black” terns in non-breeding plumage. This group was filmed in January 2018, probably in Africa.
On our WINGS Spain in Autumn birding tour we visited Parque Natural de Los Alcornocales on 13 September to see the birds and habitats of the cork tree forest. Spain’s Natural Parks allow grazing so we often saw cattle but when we stopped at Mirador Puerto de Ojén (Ojén Pass viewpoint) we found a donkey, several sheep and a chestnut horse.
It was hot. Most of the animals huddled in the shade cast by the Natural Park sign. Those who couldn’t fit their bodies into that crowded spot hung their heads in it. But the chestnut horse stoically stood in the sun. One sheep lay beneath it.
As we walked around scanning the sky for birds, the sign-shade sheep walked over to the horse and tried to fit into its shadow. There was only enough shade for their heads.
The Shade Horse walked away and the extra sheep were out of luck. The companion sheep moved with the horse, constantly in his shadow. “We’re going to eat?” asked the sheep. “Fine. There’s something here in your shadow.”
Did the horse feel used? Or did he appreciate his friend? Whatever works to stay cool.
p.s. The donkey was very friendly, more interested in us than the shade.
As I mentioned in Meet the Baypoll, I visited Bird Lab’sHays Woods banding station on Tuesday where I had up close looks at warblers and thrushes. Stars of the show were a bay-breasted warbler and a blackpoll captured in the same mist net. I got good photos of the bay-breasted warbler (Setophaga castanea) both front and back. I think he’s more confusing from the back.
Tuesday was a big day for Tennessee warblers (Leiothlypis peregrina). At least six were banded while I was there. They are hard to identify in autumn because so many of them are unremarkable immature birds without the classic dark olive back and gray head of breeding males. For example …
… and another example, though this one has a dark olive back.
During the banding process the bander fans the bird’s wings to look for its wing molt stage, a method for aging the bird. Here’s a close look at a Tennessee warbler’s wing.
And finally, Tuesday was also a big day for Swainson’s thrushes (Catharus ustulatus). In the hand you can easily see the bird’s identifying feature, its buffy eye ring, but I was surprised by two things I’d never noticed before:
Swainson’s thrushes have a two-tone beak. The lower mandible is not as dark at the face as it is at the tip.
Swainson’s thrushes are small birds, though larger than warblers.
As I said before, if you’d like to see birds up close during fall migration, visit Nick Liadis’ Bird Lab website and scroll down to the list of three banding locations — Hays Woods, Upper St. Clair and Twin Stupas in Butler County — with instructions for contacting him to set up an appointment.
Learn more about Bird Lab on Wednesday 2 October when Nick Liadis presents Studying Migration Across a Landscape Gradient: Bird Banding in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Habitats at the Three Rivers Birding Club meeting at Beechwood Farms (and on Zoom).
Don’t forget to support Nick’s efforts with a donation at Bird Lab’s GoFundMe site.
Male superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) are fantastic mimics who sing and shake their tail feathers to attract a female. Their elaborate tails normally stream out behind them, shown above, but during the courtship season in June to August the male throws his tail over his head like an umbrella and sings his heart out.
The female lays one egg that takes 50 days to hatch and cares for her young until they are independent 8-9 months after they fledge. The young won’t be ready to breed until the females are 5-6 years old and the males are 6-8 years old.
With such long waits for everything from hatching to maturity, superb lyebirds live a long time if they can escape predation. Birds of the World reports that the oldest identifiable individual was 25–26 years old.
Fifteen years ago David Attenborough filmed an amazing lyrebird singing like a chainsaw. Considering the longevity of lyrebirds, this one might still be alive and courting today.
Two species of North America’s fall warblers are so easy to mistake for each other that the pair has gained a nickname. Meet the “baypoll.”
On Tuesday I visited Bird Lab’sHays Woods banding station for an up-close look at fall migrants. That morning Nick Liadis and Shana banded magnolia warblers, Swainson’s thrushes, Tennessee warblers, ovenbirds and many other species. Best Birds were the two pictured above, found in the same net at the same time: a bay-breasted warbler and a blackpoll warbler. Were they traveling together? Maybe. See yesterday’s blog.
These two species look so much alike in autumn that birders joke that they’ve seen a baypoll when they aren’t sure which one it is. Baypoll = BAY-breasted / blackPOLL. eBird doesn’t accept that designation, of course, but it’s useful for describing our frustration.
How can you tell the two apart?
In non-breeding plumage the bay-breasted warbler (Setophaga castanea) has bold wingbars with a dark bar between them and often, but not always, a faint bay (chestnut) wash on its flanks. It also has dark feet and an unstreaked breast. Compared to other warblers the bay-breasted looks long and bulky, not petite.
Blackpoll warblers (Setophaga striata) are striped, striata, where the bay-breasted is not. Even when the stripes are faint you’ll see them at the sides of the breast. Wingbars on blackpolls are pronounced but not as emphatic as on the bay-breasted. Blackpolls have a more definite eyeline than bay-breasted, but the real clincher for a blackpoll is its yellow-orange feet! The bird may have dark legs but it always wears golden slippers. I have spent many frustrating minutes waiting for a blackpoll to show me its feet.
Notice the feet on both birds in the top photo, sticking out above the bander’s thumb.
So next time you see a baypoll, check out its feet.
If you’d like to see birds up close during fall migration, visit Nick Liadis’ Bird Lab website and scroll down to the list of three banding locations — Hays Woods, Upper St. Clair and Twin Stupas in Butler County — with instructions for contacting him to set up an appointment.
This month warblers and thrushes are making long journeys from North America to Central and South America. Every week there’s a new cohort of species and some species pass through at the same time.
Lately I’ve noticed that when I find lots of American redstarts there are also many magnolia warblers. When I find Tennessee warblers there are often Nashville and black-throated green warblers as well.
Bird banders wondered about this phenomenon, too, so five banding stations including Powdermill Avian Research Center gathered 20+ years of banding data for a long term study of spring and fall migration. They grouped the banding data by season, by mist net and the date-time each bird was captured, and by species. When they examined which species were found together patterns emerged, published in their study Persistent species relationships characterize migrating bird communities across stopover sites and seasons.
Two species captured in the same net at the same time, over and over for a period of 20 years, indicates they are feeding together at stopover sites and are likely traveling together, too.
The study’s chart of fall migrants shows that American redstarts (AMRE) and magnolia warblers (MAWA) are often found together during fall migration (the thick red line). So are Tennessee warblers (TEWA), Nashville warblers (NAWA) and black-throated green warblers (BTNW). [See chart of 4-letter bird banding codes used in the diagram.]
There’s even a correlation among thrushes. Notice the faint line between Swainson’s thrushes (SWTH) and gray-cheeked thrushes (GCTH), above.
This fall I noticed that while many Swainson’s thrushes are traveling through southwestern Pennsylvania I’ve also seen a sprinkling of gray-checked thrushes. The line on the chart is probably faint because gray-cheeked thrushes are far less numerous than Swainson’s.
So who does this blackpoll warbler travel with? His traveling buddy is not on the chart but I can guess.
I’ll bet he travels with bay-breasted warblers. Can you say baypoll?