Black walnuts are ripe now and falling from the trees. Guarded by a black-staining husk and a very hard shell, getting to the walnut meat is a challenge for humans and squirrels alike.
Humans gather and process in bulk. Squirrels gather and eat one at a time. Humans use tools, squirrels use teeth.
Both of us get walnut stains on our hands. Squirrels also get stains in their mouths.
For a squirrel, husking a single black walnut takes about 8 minutes (watch 8 minutes here).
Fox squirrel gnawing a black walnut (photo by Donna Foyle)
Opening the shell can take 40 minutes. (See photos and description at How to Open a Black Walnut). While the squirrel is gnawing the shell, you can hear a scratchy sound. Have you heard this sound in the woods? Watch and listen in the video below.
For an individual human it takes 3-4 weeks to gather, husk, clean, dry (3 weeks), and shell black walnuts. It makes sense to do this in bulk as shown in the video below.
Black walnuts are a challenge … so I buy them at the grocery store.
Turtleheads at Westinghouse Memorial, Schenley Park, 4 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
9 October 2021
White turtleheads (Chelone glabra) are widely distributed in eastern North America while pink ones (Chelone lyoni) have a narrow range in the Blue Ridge Mountains. These showy flowers were planted at the Westinghouse Memorial in Schenley Park.
Arrow-leaved tearthumb (Persicaria sagittata) has very tiny white flowers enclosed in a pink bud. I used to think the flowers were pink until I examined this one.
Arrow-head leaved tearthumb, Moraine State Park, 6 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Purple passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is so fancy that it must be tropical, right? Actually, it’s native to the southern U.S. This vine was blooming on 3 October on Phipps Conservatory’s garden fence. Wow!
Passion flower blooming along the fence at Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park, 3 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Did you know these asters close at night? I didn’t until I saw them opening in after dawn on Friday.
Asters opening when morning light reaches them, Schenley Park, 8 October 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
And here’s a curiosity that looks like a pinecone, but it’s not. Willow pinecone galls are made by the willow to protect itself from an insect. Inside each gall is the larva of a midge whose mother laid eggs at the tip of the branch. The larva will overwinter here and emerge as an adult in the spring … unless a bird hammers the gall and eats the insect.
Willow pinecone galls, Moraine State Park, 6 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Large earthquakes are unusual in Australia so it was surprising when a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck near Mansfield, Victoria at 9:15am on Wednesday 22 Sept 2021(*). It rattled Melbourne 65 miles away.
When the earthquake began the male peregrine was on the nest incubating four eggs. At first he crouched low but as it continued he jumped up, looked around, and flew away with a wail. Watch him return to the nest in less then two minutes.
Incubation was successful and the chicks hatched on 30 September (watch video here). The “kids” have been growing rapidly ever since, thanks to many feedings. Here’s a recent feeding, Thursday morning 7 Oct 2021 at 7:15am(*).
When you do, keep in mind the large time zone difference between Melbourne and Pittsburgh. The feeding shown above occurred in Pittsburgh at 4:15pm on Wednesday.
(*) indicates date & time is local to Melbourne, Australia.
In early October it’s easy to find pigeons, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers, blue jays and chickadees in Pittsburgh. Ho hum! I wish for better birds.
Instead of red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) there were two other Melanerpes. A flock of 40-60 migrating Lewis’s woodpeckers (Melanerpes lewis) …
We have northern flickers in Pittsburgh but they are yellow-shafted (click here to see). In California northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) are red-shafted. Wow!
Note: Ted posted photos on his checklist but I do not yet have permission to use them so these are from Wikimedia Commons. Click here to see Ted’s photos.
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
It’s foggy this morning in Pittsburgh as it has been for several days. On Saturday, heavy dew gleamed at Frick Park and laced the spider webs with beads of moisture.
Foggy morning with dew at Frick Park, 2 October 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Today the temperature is warm enough under the trees that there is no fog beneath them though there is plenty above.
Foggy morning in Pittsburgh; no fog beneath the trees, 5 October 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
On Friday at Schenley Park we could see at ground level but fog above the trees made the sun look like a moon under the arch of the Panther Hollow Bridge.
Sun rising in fog just below the Panther Hollow Bridge, Schnley Park, 1 October 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
When the fog cleared, the Cathedral of Learning emerged as from a magical kingdom.
Fog clearing in front of the Cathedral of Learning, 1 October 2021 (photo by Kate St. John
Today the fog has intensified in the last hour, no birds are stirring in the trees and Ecco is waiting at the Cathedral of Learning to start his day.
Teeth are so important that every toothless animal today is descended from ancestors that had them. This includes anteaters, baleen whales, pangolins, turtles, and birds.
There are probably several reasons why teeth disappeared but the main one is this: In order to fly well it’s important to reduce excess body weight. Bones and teeth are heavy so over time birds evolved hollow bones and toothless beaks. They compensate for the lack of teeth by chewing food in their gizzards.
Each species developed a beak for its lifestyle. A few of them evolved beak modifications that resemble teeth.
Among tooth-billed hummingbirds (Androdon aequatorialis) the males have a “straight bill with a prominent hooked tip and backward-pointing tooth-like serrations on the distal half. The modification is absent on the female bill, and thus may be related to sexual selection,” describes Birds of the World. Perhaps the “teeth” are used for fighting.
Toothbilled hummingbird beak (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
The critically endangered tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), the national bird of Samoa, has a stout curved bill with a specially toothed lower mandible.
[The bill] is adapted to feed on Wild Mahogany Dysoxylum spp. fruits, although first-year birds apparently cannot do so. These fruits have a tough capsule that it is able to open using its strong bill, removing the flesh using a sawing action with the lower mandible.
By October the seed pods of American bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia) are papery brown three-sided puffs.
American bladdernut seed pods, Schenley Park, 1 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John) (background was blurred by portrait mode on my cellphone)
If you peel one apart it becomes three heart-shaped pieces. Each piece may hold one popcorn-like seed. Some pieces may be blank.
Outside of a single bladdernut paper shell (photo by Kate St. John)
Six months ago the bladders began as small dangling flowers less than 1/4 inch long. Notice the three-part leaves that give this native shrub or small tree its trifolia species name.
Flowers much magnified with trifolia leaves, Schenley Park, 17 April 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
By late July the bladders were green and very puffy. Each section had its own distinct point.
Bladdernut seed pods, 28 July 2020 (photo by Kate St. John)
And then the bladders dried out.
Dried bladdernut, Schenley Park, 3 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
American bladdernuts put so much effort into seed pods that it’s surprising to find they can spread by suckers, especially in their favorite habitats of floodplain woods or stream banks in eastern North America.
