Albion Falls in fog, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
However at ground level there were beautiful water droplets on all the plants. Many of them “weeds” but all looked gorgeous. Top to bottom:
Perennial sow thistle
White sweet clover
Common salsify
Gray dogwood berry stems shrouded in cobwebs
Tartarian honeysuckle berries
White sweet clover in fog, Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Common salsify in fog, Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Gray dogwood, mostly eaten berry bunch shrouded in cobwebs and fog, Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Tartarian honeysuckle berries in fog, Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Back in Pittsburgh I see deer every day now in my neighborhood. These two are munching a garden on Neville Avenue — a 6-point buck in velvet with a doe. They are a persistent couple.
Muching a garden: 6-point buck in velvet with doe, 10 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yesterday on Ellsworth Avenue my husband was surprised to see a curious fawn inside the Hunt Mansion fence. The fawn began to approach him. Where was its mother?
Not far away. After a few steps the fawn paused and went to mom nearby. Its mother taught it that humans on the sidewalk are not dangerous, but don’t get too close.
The doe must have indicated she was going outside the fence. “I’m going to eat that hedge. Go to your hiding place while I’m gone.”
The doe crossed the street to the yard with the delicious hedge and the fawn trotted away.
In my neighborhood on 1 July I encountered a deer very close to the sidewalk who didn’t care that I stared at her.
She was eating a large Japanese spindle hedge (Euonymus japonicus)*, a plant that is toxic to humans and pets but not toxic to deer. She must be eating it day after day because the long hedge is damaged and see-through.
Japanese spindle hedge browsed by deer, 1 July 2026 (photo my Kate St. John)
Terribly hot weather. Even the sunset looked hot.
Heatwave sunset, 2 July 2026, 8:41pm (photo by Kate St. John)
So we’re on a mini-vacation in Hamilton, Ontario where it is not as hot. “Why Hamilton?” asked the Canadian immigration officer at the Peace Bridge. Well, we didn’t want to drive all the way to Toronto. Fair enough.
Hamilton (H on the map below) is on the way to Toronto (T) and more than an hour+ from the Peace Bridge in Buffalo (B). As we learned, there is a lot of stop and go traffic on the expressway.
Hamilton is at the westward tip of Lake Ontario and is bisected by the Niagara Escarpment, a 650-mile cliff that arcs from New York state to Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is not a fault line but the result of unequal erosion with hard rock on the cliff top and eroding limestone on the cliff face. Both the Genesee River in Rochester, NY and Niagara Falls cascade over the Niagara Escarpment.
Both the lake and the escarpment are visible from our hotel windows.
Lake Ontario seen from Hamilton, Ontario, 4 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)A portion of the Niagara Escarpment as seen from Hamilton, Ontario, 4 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
But not visible today. We were going to see the escarpment but it’s foggy.
Fog in Hamilton, Ontario, northeast wind, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
(*) p.s. It’s possible that I’ve misidentified the hedge the deer was eating. Cultivated Euonymus japonicus and E.Fortunei are very similar.
Bumblebee at obedient plant, 23 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
27 June 2026
This week I was in Blair and Allegheny Counties where I found late June flowers, busy insects and urban deer.
Beauty
Obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), at top, attracts many pollinators. It’s called obedient plant because if you move an individual flower to the side it stays in place.
Enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea sp.) started blooming at the summer solstice in Schenley Park.
Enchanter’s nightshade, Schenley, 26 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
American germander (Teucrium canadense) is blooming at the Herrs Island back channel.
American germander, near Herr’s Island, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 21 June we had a beautiful morning birding the Lower Trail at Mt. Etna Station in Blair County. Before the day heated up, mist rose from the damp wooden railing on the pedestrian bridge over Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River.
Mist rises from a damp railing on the Lower Trail at Mt. Etna, 21 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Bugs
Also on the Lower Trail a bug floated down from the trees. We caught and examined it, only to find it was the exoskeleton of a mayfly.
Mayfly exoskeleton, Lower Trail in Blair County, 20 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
On that same day back in Pittsburgh John English saw his first spotted lanternfly. 3rd instar.
Spotted lanternfly, Homestead, 20 June 2026 (photo by John English)
In 24 June I visited the Herrs Island back channel where I reliably find spotted lanternflies in the summer. There weren’t many but at least one was already in the final instar … the red one.
Two instars of spotted lanternfly, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Spotted lanternfly 3rd instar, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Spotted lanternfly 4th instar, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
The 4th instar will transform into a winged adult. This is only a matter of days away …
Spotted lanternfly stages, from nymph to adult (image from Wikimedia Commons)
Urban Deer
The deer in my urban neighborhood don’t care about people and cars. On 20 June my husband photographed a limping doe.
Limping deer in Shadyside, 19 June 2026 (photo by Richard St. John)Limping deer in Shadyside, 19 June 2026 (photo by Richard St. John)
And on 24 June my neighbor pointed out a doe and buck resting behind the retaining wall at Neville House. The buck is well hidden from my location. You can see the doe’s resting legs, her body and the back of her head.
Doe and buck sleeping behind the wall at Neville House, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Frostbite on the early leaves of Ohio buckeye in Frick Park
Urban wildlife … literally outside my window.
Lilacs blooming in the city, 14 April 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Leaf# 2, 3, 4 of red maple. First two leaves look nothing like a maple
Poison ivy is leafing out
Ramps
American elm leaves
Frostbite on early Ohio buckeye leaves
Urban Wildlife: Here’s what I saw, literally outside my window, in 10 minutes on Thursday 16 April.
That dot on Central Catholic High School’s cross is a red-tailed hawk. A pair is nesting within sight of the cross … but where?
Red-tailed hawk on Central Catholic cross, 16 April 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Three deer crossed the street outside my window and grazed next to the sidewalk as cars drove by. When people approached on the sidewalk and started taking pictures and video, the deer walked away.
Three deer browsing on Ascension Church lawn, 16 April 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
How urban is their habitat? Very urban.
Where the deer were browsing on Ascension Church lawn, 16 April 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Crows staging near Frick Fine Arts, 9 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
13 December 2025, Pittsburgh, PA
Crows: On Tuesday evening I counted more than 4,000 crows in the first 15 minutes of staging at Frick Fine Arts at University of Pittsburgh. Thousands more showed up after that but they were too hard to count because they kept swirling. See photos and videos in Wednesday’s article: So Many Crows!
Deer: Yesterday in Schenley Park I saw a herd of seven deer on a wooded hillside near the Westinghouse memorial, a mix of bucks and does. The bucks had already shed their antlers, however their interactions attracted my attention. Two or three deer frequently snorted and chased the others. I could tell that one chaser’s head used to have antlers. Apparently his hormones were waning but he was still feisty.
This photo from February 2014 will have to substitute for what I saw. Yesterday’s herd was too quick and camouflaged to photograph with my cellphone.
Deer in Schenley Park in winter, 22 Feb 2014 (photo by Kate St. John)
Hole in the Road: Workmen arrived yesterday to fix a water main break near where I live. The small hole on the right is the sinkhole. The enormous hole on the left is what they’re digging to hook up the source. The jackhammer is digging the slab the guys are standing on inorder to join the two holes. Scary thing: The surface concrete is about a foot thick but beneath it is nothing but air for more than 6 feet! Apparently the intersection is a “bridge” over … what?
Hole in the road at N. Craig and Bayard, 12 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)Under the thick street-level concrete … Nothing! at N. Craig and Bayard, 12 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Now that it’s cold we’re all wearing winter coats.
We humans make decisions every day about what layers to put on, but birds and animals changed into their winter coats a couple of months ago.
White-tailed deer have two different coats of hair during the year. The gray winter coat is comprised of longer guard hairs and a soft wooly underfur that provide insulation from the cold. This thicker winter coat is shed prior to the hot summer months. The shorter summer coat is reddish-brown and lacks the thick insulating underfur. The summer coat hairs are short and wiry.
Non-migratory birds molt into fresh new feathers with added insulation in late summer. House sparrows (Passer domesticus) increase their plumage weight by 70% between August and September. Their typical summer plumage weight is 0.9 grams, winter weight is 1.5 grams, but they won’t look heavier until it’s really cold.
Speaking of darting into traffic, as I did yesterday regarding squirrels, November and December are the peak months in Pennsylvania for deer-vehicle collisions. Deer are in the rut (breeding) and not paying attention to anything except the opposite sex. In addition they prefer to move at dawn and dusk, and that’s when we’re driving because sunset is so early (5:04pm today).
The Post-Gazette pointed out on 9 November:
Pennsylvania, consistently among the worst for collisions between wildlife and vehicles, has seen crashes due to deer rising over the past five years, with 6,426 such collisions in 2024, per data from PennDOT.
And, beware, this week could add mightily to 2025’s tally.
“The peak of the rut in Pennsylvania is between the 12th and the 18th of November. It’s the worst time to be driving,” said Don Wagner, the deer unit manager at Penn State University in State College.
Almost the whole group (5 out of 6) at the Schenley outing, 26 Oct 2025 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)
27 October 2025
Yesterday morning six of us came out to look for birds at the Bartlett end of Schenley Park. I had high hopes for sparrows but we only saw song sparrows. It was cold and the birds did not become active until the day warmed up at 10:15am. By then we were done.
At first we stayed in the sunlit warmer areas, then walked the interior up the Falloon Trail and walked to Circuit Drive on the golf course. That’s where things got interesting.
We saw an 8-point buck in a tiny woodlot sandwiched between the road and the now-closed hole near the maintenance garage. He posed nicely for several of us and leapt away while Roger Day snapped this action shot. This buck was the second 8-point I’ve seen in four days; their antlers were different.
8-point buck leaps out of the tiny woodlot at Schenley golf course, 26 Oct 2025 (photo by Roger Day)
Further down the road I found stark evidence of deer damage in the park. These northern white-cedars (Thuja occidentalis) would normally have branches and greenery all the way to the ground (click here to see what I mean) but cedars are a favorite food of white-tailed deer who eat them up as far as they can reach.
Deer damage to northern white-cedar at the golf course, Schenley, 26 Oct 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Best Birds were two immature Cooper’s hawks (Astur cooperii) flying together and calling. Shortly thereafter we briefly saw an adult Coopers hawk hunting in the same area. Perhaps the youngsters were whining for food. No wonder the birds were hiding!
Dead deer in Schenley Park, road kill in Nov 2016 (photo by Kate St. John)
22 October 2025
This week I learned of another side effect of this summer’s drought. Deer in southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia are dying of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD). It has also been reported in western Pennsylvania. I learned about EHD in The Guardian.
When landowner and hunter James Barkhurst went scouting his property about a month ago to assess the local deer population ahead of the fall hunting season, he was left in shock.
“I’ve seen about 14 dead in less than a mile stretch. There’s a lot of does, big bucks and even fawns. You smell the dead everywhere,” he says.
The longtime deer hunter owns several hundred acres and runs a small Airbnb business in Athens County, Ohio. This time of year, hunters from North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere usually descend on his accommodation and property to hunt. This year, with so many dead deer in the area, his business has been almost wiped out.
Epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) is more prevalent during a drought because the tiny biting midges that carry it are concentrated at the watering holes and so are white-tailed deer. The disease kills rapidly. As soon as an infected deer shows symptoms it dies within 3 days, usually seeking water before it dies. Fortunately EHD cannot infect humans and deer cannot infect each other. Also fortunately, the midge dies at the first hard freeze. (Hooray for winter!)
Longspur Tracking used a drone in Wood County, WV to find dead deer and tally them. Their 25-minute video shows each deer found. I have started the YouTube embed at 22 minutes into the full video so you can see their last find and their conclusions. “This is what we’ve been talking about. The smell of death everywhere we go.”
