The number of hummingbirds is dwindling in Pittsburgh and soon all our ruby-throats will be gone for points south. If you miss them at your feeders you’ll enjoy this soothing 7-minute video from Los Angeles where there are many species of hummingbirds. (Listen for ravens in the background!)
This video was filmed in April 2021 during spring migration in southern California and became so popular that folks asked where they could buy the bird bath, described at @wildwingsla Hummingbird Fountain.
Most raptors are solo hunters though mated pairs of peregrines, aplomado falcons and golden eagles will sometimes hunt cooperatively when there are young in the nest. But even this is rare.
Harris’s hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus harrisi) are the exception. Native from the American Southwest to western Peru, they hunt together in family groups organized like a wolf pack.
A dominance hierarchy occurs in Harris’s hawks, wherein the mature female is the dominant bird, followed by the adult male and then the young of previous years. Groups typically include from two to seven birds. Not only do birds cooperate in hunting, but they also assist in the nesting process. No other bird of prey is known to hunt in groups as routinely as this species.
If you’re near a family’s territory you’ll see them work together. (Fair warning: video shows them catching a rabbit + includes a pun on the word “prey”)
Since the 1980’s Harris’s hawks have become popular falconry birds because they are very social and easy to train. They are often used to keep nuisance birds away from airports, public places, and landfills.
At least one of them is internationally famous: Rufus the Hawk at Wimbledon, June 2014.
The sunbittern (Eurypyga helias), native to Central and South America, is a cryptically marked wader that lurks in the shadows and behaves like a heron. In its normal posture it is visually interesting but not stunning.
Below, a sunbittern in the shade stepped into a patch of sunlight (photo at top).
Sometimes sunbitterns are found in open habitats, such as this marsh where one photobombed a plumbeous ibis. (Also in the Pantanal, this photo was taken an hour away from those at top.)
The real reason to search for a sunbittern is in hopes that it will open its wings in the Frontal Display. This behavior is rarely photographed in the wild because it is a threat/defensive posture.
The spectacular Frontal Display of the Sunbittern has been documented only in threat and defensive situations, with little evidence supporting any role in courtship behavior. … The posture dramatically increases the apparent size of the displaying bird while exposing what may be interpreted as fake eyes. The defensive role of this display also is supported by the fact that … young Sunbitterns begin practicing the display at an early age and will make display attempts when threatened.
The best photos are taken in captivity when the sunbittern is saying “back off” to the human with the camera. We are mesmerized! Of course we approach.
When migrating shorebirds evade a falcon they form very tight flocks that twist and turn in the air to make the flock look like a solid blob. If they have white bellies and dark backs, the flock changes color as they turn.
When you see these murmurations, look for the falcon who’s chasing them. He’s visible for a split second at approximately 0:46.
Thanks to a falcon, we witnessed a fantastic murmuration of thousands of dunlins and sanderlings at Griffiths-Priday State Park north of Ocean Shores, WA.
Previously unknown navigation mechanism: Pigeons may sense the Earth’s magnetic field using iron-rich immune cells in their livers, a quantum effect.
Navigation experiments: Removing iron-containing immune cells in the liver disrupted pigeons’ sense of direction under overcast skies when the sun was not visible.
Sensing via the immune system: Findings suggest a new link between immunity and sensory perception in birds, and potentially other animal species.
Magnetic sensing and navigation is a trait that both rock pigeons and rock lobsters have in common.
Rock lobsters, also known as spiny lobsters, live in crevices and come out at night to eat.
Spiny lobsters are unique among the crustaceans in that they undergo large, coordinated migrations every year. Sometimes in the fall over 50 lobsters will line up in single file and walk along the ocean floor. The tips of each lobster’s long antenna will always be in contact with the lobster in front of it, so that even if the lobster cannot see, it will not lose its place in line. No one knows the reasons for this migration, but it could be in response to changing environmental conditions (i.e. temperature) or to mate or to molt en masse.
What does their migration look like? PBS Nature planted a robot spy-lobster among Caribbean spiny lobsters to track their migration. When the group began to migrate, the spy-lobster followed.
Peregrine falcons eat birds for a living and leave the remains behind, usually just feathers and bones. Every once in a while they eat a banded bird and if we’re lucky the band remains on the gravel at the Pitt peregrine nest. Can we identify who they ate?
Right now there’s a small blue metal band near the green perch that’s been on the gravel for about a year, disappearing and reappearing at random.
It cannot be read in a closeup but it looks like a homing pigeon band (racing or wedding dove). It’s uncommon for the Pitt peregrines to catch a homing pigeon but I’ve seen it before.
About 15 years ago during a Pitt peregrine banding, Art McMorris pointed out a homing pigeon band that he’d retrieved from the nest. I volunteered to track down the pigeon’s owner. At the time it was pretty difficult. Each pigeon owner affiliates with a pigeon association and each association has its own band listing. You have to decipher the Association Code before you can begin.
I was having a hard time getting anywhere until it dawned on me that the last 10 digits on the band looked like a phone number. So I called it and immediately reached the pigeon owner in northern Indiana.
He told me that the bird was part of a Young Bird race — hatched 3.5 to 4.5 months earlier — that started in southern Indiana. It should have flown north about 200 miles. Instead it flew northeast about 400 miles — twice as far — before it stopped. It apparently had a compass error so it was totally unsuitable for racing. He did not mind that a peregrine ate it.
At the Center for Conservation Biology they monitor peregrines that nest throughout Virginia including at the James River Bridge at Newport News. Bryan Watts tells the story of prey bands found in peregrine nests. It’s interesting to note that Eastern Shore peregrines eat a lot of shorebirds, some of which have flag bands
There’s a famous problem that humans get wrong almost all the time but pigeons get right. It’s called the Monty Hall Problem, named after the TV host, co-creator and co-producer of television’s Let’s Make A Deal. It works like this:
There are three closed doors, one with a prize behind it, two with goats. Suppose you and the pigeon both pick Door #1.
Monty asks you, “Do you want to stay with your choice of Door #1 or do you want to switch?”
Well, it looks like you have a 50-50 chance of winning so you stick with Door #1. This is a losing strategy. Pigeons switch doors and win 2/3 of the time.
Pigeons get it. Humans don’t. This video explains how switching doors works best. I see the statistics, but my gut still comes up with the wrong answer.
Yellow at the nest, 6 July 2026, 8:36pm (photo from the National Aviary falconcam at Univ of Pittsburgh)
10 July 2026
On Tuesday morning, 7 July, I was chatting with friends at Schenley Plaza when I heard a young peregrine whining for food — a normal sound in early June when young peregrines have just fledged but atypical in July.
I looked up to see the whiner chasing her parents around the Cathedral of Learning. Yes, it was Yellow. She arrived at the nest the previous evening when her parents were not around.
Yellow arrives at the nest, 6 July 8:35pm
Yellow tape on her USFW band
Her parents aren't here
She pounces on scraps in the nest
Streaming starts to get weird.
Recording is weird. Digital fractals.
Right now the Pitt peregrines are mostly off camera but there are occasional moments of excitement. Ecco and Carla bow at the nest. Yellow pops in unexpectedly.
A flurry of peregrines. But who? 30 June 2026, 4:51pm (photos from the snapshot camera)
1 July 2026
This morning when I pulled motion detection photos of the Pitt peregrine nest I found three in a row that didn’t make sense. #1 Ecco on green perch, #2 a flurry of peregrine wings, #3 juvenile peregrine Yellow on the green perch.
Maybe photo #2 was Ecco leaving when Yellow burst in, but there were too many wings in that flurry. Who was it? The video tells the tale.
Ecco and Carla were bowing at the nest to strengthen their pair bond. Heaven knows they have a lot to talk about since two of their kids, Yellow and Green, refuse to leave home.
While they’re bowing we hear a whining juvenile in the background. Carla looks up.
On Friday one of this year’s juvenile peregrines burst into the Cathedral of Learning nest and complained loudly that her parents should feed her “Right Now!” though she’s old enough to hunt on her own.
Ecco was in the nestbox, about to bow — maybe Carla was going to join him? — but we’ll never know because “Green” was so demanding that she chased Ecco away.
Green complained bitterly, “You’re supposed to feed me!” But neither parent responded.
Just like Yellow’s behavior on 23 June, Green was acting half her age. However, unlike Yellow she did not stay at the nest for several hours. She left after seven minutes.
This video shows six of those seven minutes. (I skipped the one minute when she was so far off camera that only her toenails were showing.) Whining. Whining. Whining.
With one or more demanding “kids” back at the Cathedral of Learning, Ecco and Carla stayed away from the nest yesterday. They’re avoiding their soon-to-be-independent offspring so the “kids” figure out it’s time to grow up and leave home.
