Seen This Week: While out birding on Tuesday I noticed blooming flowers and unusual leaves at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve. Mitrewort (Mitella diphylla), at top, is one of my favorites because of its delicate, intricate flowers.
Star-of-Bethlehem, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 16 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
This red leaf gall caught my attention, but the bulk of it is under of the leaf and colored green (second photo). Does anyone know the name of this gall?
Upper side of leaf gall, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 16 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Underside of leaf gall, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 16 May 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Large-flowered valerian (Valeriana pauciflora) is in bud and in bloom at Raccoon Wildlfower Reserve.
Largeflower valerian, in bud and blooming, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 16 May 2023 (photos by Kate St. John)
Meanwhile jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) is blooming in Schenley Park. I could not resist raising his lid.
Jack-in-the-pulpit, normal pose and lid raised, Schenley Park, 19 May 2023 (photos by Kate St. John)
We’ve all experienced a moment when a smell suddenly brings back memories. A whiff of perfume, a hint of cinnamon and clove, even the smell of furniture polish can send us back in time with vivid detail.
The reason is that our olfactory bulb which processes smells is physically connected to the two places in our brain that process emotion and memory, the amygdala and hippocampus. The link makes a lot of sense in animals that use pheromones for sexual attraction.
This strange entanglement of emotions and scents may actually have a simple evolutionary explanation. The amygdala evolved from an area of the brain that was originally dedicated to detecting chemicals, Herz said. “Emotions tell us about approaching things and avoiding things, and that’s exactly what the sense of smell does too,” she said. “So, they’re both very intimately connected to our survival.” In fact, the way we use emotions to understand and respond to the world resembles how animals use their sense of smell.
Which brings me to this plant I found blooming at Hays Woods in late April. The scent of cypress spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias) is so unique that it takes me back to a particular place and time and the happiness of seeing beautiful birds at Presque Isle State Park in early May.
Cypress spurge, Hays Woods, Pittsburgh, 24 April 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
On Throw Back Thursday here’s why cypress spurge reminds me of migrating warblers:
As humans we recognize each other by face, body shape and the way a person walks, but it’s rare that we can recognize individual birds. Birds move too fast to examine their faces and in most cases we don’t know what to look for. However if you can “hold them still” in photographs it’s possible to see patterns. This is especially true of your backyard birds that can be photographed over and over.
Blue jays all look the same … but not really. Their facial markings can be unique enough to tell them apart in photos. Lesley The Bird Nerd in Ontario, Canada has photographed her local blue jays for many years and learned to tell who’s who by face. Check out her 6.5 minute video below.
Wild parrots live in flocks and interact with each other all the time but pet parrots often have lonely isolated lives that lead to psychological problems and self-damaging behaviors. We know that video chats help people connect over long distances. Could parrot-to-parrot video chats enrich the pet birds’ lives? The answer “Yes!” was presented at the ACM SIGCHI conference last month.
A research team from Northeastern University, MIT and the University of Glasgow, who study the potential of technology to enrich the lives of pets and zoo animals, enlisted 18 pet parrots and their caregivers in a three-month-long study to connect the parrots to each other online. Even in such a short time the birds became so engaged that they and their caregivers did not want to stop when the study ended.
During the first two weeks, the parrots were taught to ring a bell and touch a screen image of another parrot so that their caregiver would start a video chat with the selected bird.
In the second phase, which lasted two months, the birds were given free reign to request and make calls whenever they wanted. The birds quickly developed favorite video-chat friends with whom they talked, sang and preened. “Parrots who made the most calls also received more calls, suggesting that the study helped the birds become more social. Their caretakers also reported improved bonding with their pets.” — Phys.org.
The results were quite exciting in some households.
“We saw some really encouraging results from the study. The parrots seemed to grasp that they were truly engaging with other birds onscreen and their behavior often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions between these types of birds. We saw birds learn to forage for the first time, and one caregiver reported that their bird flew for the first time after making a call,” said co-author Dr. Jennifer Cunha who is co-founder of Parrot Kindergarten, Inc. that helped to recruit and train the parrot caregivers for the study.
Last November eBird enhanced their Status and Trends website with cool interactive maps of overall abundance, weekly abundance, population trends and range for nearly 700 species. The population trends are fascinating for two reasons: northward movement and curious exceptions.
Many eastern species are moving their breeding ranges northward. For some it’s starkly obvious that they’re declining in the Southeastern U.S. and increasing in the northern U.S. and southern Canada. Click HERE to see 12 good examples at Cottonwood Post.
Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata) trends are doubly fascinating. Jays are definitely moving north but with a curious exception in south Florida (why increasing there?). Check out their trends map. Blue is good, red is bad.
Most of Pennsylvania has no change in blue jay abundance but did you see the tiny red dot near Pittsburgh? Where is that decline? Drill into the map on the eBird website using these step-by-step screenshots to guide you.
As I zoomed in it became apparent that nothing has changed (i.e. white dots) for blue jays in our region until I found that red dot in Cranberry Township. I hovered my cursor over it and found that blue jays declined there 7.5% from 2007 to 2021. I wonder why…
Meanwhile wood thrushes (Hylocichla mustelina) are the curious exception. Though declining overall their trends map doesn’t show the predictable north-south pattern.
Wood thrush singing (photo by Steve Gosser)
Wood thrushes are declining in the Northeast but increasing in the Southern Appalachians and Alabama. A line of “No Change” runs from approximately Kingston, Ontario to Charlottesville, Virginia. Again, I wonder why…
Black-tailed godwits (Limosa limosa) are large shorebirds with a worldwide distribution but are listed as Near Threatened because their population declined 25% in only 15 years, 1990-2005. Two thirds of them breed in Europe. In fact almost half the worldwide population breeds in the Netherlands alone.
The European breeders spend the winter in the Mediterranean and Africa including at the Tagus Estuary at Lisbon, Portugal. During spring migration the Tagus hosts up to 40% of all the black-tailed godwits on Earth. Anything that permanently disturbs the Tagus could hurt the godwits.
The Montijo Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) counted black-tailed godwits at feeding and resting sites and calculated how many godwits would be disturbed by the noise of air traffic at 65dB (decibels) (orange outline below, 55dB is the yellow outline). The airport’s EIA said only 0.46–5.5% of the godwits would be disturbed.
Though the EIA used the counting techniques that we use in eBird — the number of birds at rest or in the air at specific points — it doesn’t tell the whole story.
The size of an impact/protection footprint depends on both the connectivity of impacted sites and the configuration of the entire network. Environmental Impact Assessments typically assume (a) a static population, ignoring connectivity: in such cases the footprint only covers the site(s) directly impacted (red circles). … A network with dense connections, such as (c), will typically result in a greater footprint. …Similarly, an impact on a central site (d) results in a larger footprint. (diagram and caption from “Conservation beyond Boundaries: using animal movement networks in Protected Area assessment” by J. Nightingale et al at ZSL Publications)
Fortunately many black-tailed godwits are banded so Nightingale could use 20 years of location data on 693 banded godwits, many seen twice on the same day in the Tagus area. He then drew connections from site to site to create the godwits’ airspace network. Nightingale also used a 55dB noise plot because that level of noise disrupts 50% of the birds.
Frequent disturbance by aircraft is known to have fitness costs for waders by increasing their energy expenditure, and may cause permanent avoidance of habitat if chronic with long-term consequences for site occupancy. The Tagus godwits’ frequent trans-boundary movements mean that 44.6% of the SPA’s godwit population would be exposed to noise disturbance from the proposed airport, and 68.3% of individuals overall. This compares with estimates of 0.46–5.5% in the airport’s EIA.
The past tense is important here. Though never numerous, their population declined precipitously in the late 20th century. By 2000 they were extinct in the wild and existed only in captivity.
Organizations, including the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP e.V.), conducted captive breeding programs to release Spix’s macaw back to their homeland but they also had to spend many years locating, protecting and preparing proper habitat for the birds’ release into the hottest, driest area of the Caatinga.
Dippy wearing a St. Patrick’s Day scarf at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 15 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
18 March 2023
Every Saturday I review my photos and pick a few nature observations to highlight but today, weirdly, I only have pictures of man-made objects. The lack of nature observations stumped me for several hours while I struggled to come up a good topic. Finally I gave up. Here’s what I saw.
Dippy, the statue of Diplodocus carnegii in front of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, wears a special scarf for St. Patrick’s Day. He doesn’t actually mind the cold.
My husband and I see this water tower from our apartment but I had not seen it up close so I took a long walk *uphill* to visit what he and I affectionately call “The Doorknob.”
The Doorknob on the Hill at Robert E Williams Memorial Park (photo by Kate St. John)
Were there ghosts at Pitt’s Frick Fine Arts building on 9 March? What else could explain this Ghost Busters car in the parking lot at the maintenance entrance?
Next week I’ll make a big effort to snap photos of plants.
One night in 2012 while he was an entomology grad student at University of Arkansas, Michael Skvarla went to Walmart to buy milk. On his way into the store he saw a large unusual insect clinging to the building so he carefully picked it off the exterior and carried it with him to add to his insect collection.
Then in 2020 the COVID shutdown forced Penn State classes online so Skvarla pulled specimens from his own insect collection to teach Entomology 432 lab on Zoom. As he showed this bug to the class and described its characteristics Skvarla paused because it didn’t match its label. The class analyzed the bug and made a rare discovery.
“We all realized together that the insect was not what it was labeled and was in fact a super-rare giant lacewing. I still remember the feeling. It was so gratifying to know that the excitement doesn’t dim, the wonder isn’t lost. Here we were making a true discovery in the middle of an online lab course,” said Codey Mathis, a doctoral candidate in entomology at Penn State.
This bug is quite rare. According to Penn State Research News, giant lacewings (Polystoechotes punctata) have been missing from eastern North America for over 50 years and were never before found in Arkansas. Its discovery suggests there may be relic populations of this Jurassic-Era insect yet to be discovered.
Where did the giant lacewing come from? Are there more out there? Those answers await more field research.
Moral of the Story: Don’t worry if you cautiously misidentify something. Just hang onto that photo or specimen and reevaluate it later. Perhaps you’ll discover a rarity.
(photo credits in the captions; click on the captions to see the originals)
“Tame” ruffed grouse at Moraine State Park, 13 Nov 2020 (photo by Dave Brooke)
13 March 2023
In November 2020 the ruffed grouse pictured above caused a sensation among birders by coming very close to us at Moraine State Park. He even chased my car!
The “tame” ruffed grouse looks at me, Moraine State Park, 13 Nov 2020 (photo by Kate St. John taken on my cellphone)
“Tame” ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) are not common in Pennsylvania but where they occur they are quite noticeable. They aren’t afraid of humans and they sometimes act aggressively. Why do they do this?
The Game Commission is encouraging Pennsylvanians to report the location of any “tame” grouse they see this spring by sending an email to grousecomments@pa.gov. That email should include the person’s name and phone number, date of the sighting, location of the encounter and a description of the grouse’s behavior. Ideally, those sending in a report should also include GPS coordinates for the encounter site.
According to the press release, “The study aims to determine whether the Commonwealth’s grouse population shows signs of splitting up into distinct subpopulations and if “tame” behavior is linked to genetics.”
If you know of a tame grouse in PA please report it.
Meanwhile here’s a video that shows the “tame” grouse behavior.
