Crocus in Shadyside garden, Pittsburgh, 9 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
11 March 2023
After a very warm February, with some days reaching 20° to 26°F above normal, the weather returned to expected March temperatures this week and our Too Early Spring hit the Pause Button.
The city’s Urban Heat Island still prompted non-native ornamental plants to bloom including crocuses above and forsythia below.
Forsythia in bloom, 4 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Garlic mustard came up in Schenley Park.
Garlic mustard, 5 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Native trees, like this sycamore in Schenley Park, waited for warmer weather while non-native willows turned yellow such as the willows at bottom right (perhaps Salix babylonica).
A shadow of the Panther Hollow Bridge bisects this view of a sycamore in Schenley Park (photo by Kate St. John)
But there are better things to look at. Last Sunday the Botanical Society visited the Otto and Magdelen Ackerman Reserve in Westmoreland County where we found yellow corydalis (Corydalis flavula) poking up among the fallen leaves. No flowers yet.
Leaves of yellow corydalis, Ackerman Reserve, 4 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Plus two impressive fungi on fallen trees.
Armallaria formerly hidden under bark, Ackerman Reserve, 4 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Are these turkey tails? Ackerman Reserve, 4 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
By the way, don’t forget that Daylight Saving Time begins tonight in most of the U.S. It’s time to Spring Forward.
On Monday 6 March 2023, Fran Bungert sent me an email to say that she saw snow trillium blooming at Cedar Creek Park the day before. She added that 5 March is the earliest she’s ever seen it bloom.
In my experience snow trillium (Trillium nivale) is usually the earliest spring ephemeral in southwestern Pennsylvania, traditionally blooming in late March or early April. The flowers persist for about four weeks so my observations circled below are not necessarily first bloom date. Nonetheless Fran’s 5 March observation in red is the earliest ever!
Inspired to see the flowers I visited Cedar Creek on Tuesday afternoon. Before I reached the snow trillium hillside, I found evidence of flash floods that cut the creek bank. It was a brown landscape compared to what I see in April.
Cedar Creek and streamside trail, 7 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Snow trillium dotted the hillside but blended into the fallen leaves because the white flowers looked like splashes of sunshine. How many flowers do you see in this photo?
The flowers were at various stages from barely to fully open, at top.
Snow trillium at Cedar Creek, 7 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
I found harbinger of spring (Erigenia bulbosa) leaves but no flowers.
As of 7 March only the snow trillium was blooming at Cedar Creek.
(photos by Kate St. John)
p.s. For my own notes, here’s a list of blogs that indicate when I saw snow trillium:
Large-flowered Trillium, Barking Slopes, blooming on 25 March 2012 (photo by Kate St. John)
8 March 2023
North American wildflowers face many threats to their existence including habitat loss, deer overpopulation and pollinator declines but there is another threat we didn’t see coming until now. As the climate heats up North American spring ephemerals will have no time to bloom and store food for the coming summer. Their existence is threatened by the Too Early Springs of climate change.
Forest wildflowers bloom before the trees leaf out because they are in a race to gather as much sunshine as possible before the canopy closes. When the trees reach Full Leaf the flowers stop blooming.
Wildflowers in deciduous forests often rely on leafing out before the canopy to create 50-100% of their annual carbon budget. Lead author and Carnegie Museum of Natural History postdoctoral research associate Dr. Benjamin Lee describes it “as if a person were to eat all the calories they needed for a year in the first three weeks.”
Ideally, wildflowers would merely advance their blooming schedules and all would be well but the study published last December in Nature Communications shows otherwise. Using herbarium specimens in North America, Europe and Asia, researchers compared wildflower blooming times and tree leaf out dates for the three continents.
Blooming early works in Europe and Asia because those trees leaf out later anyway. But in North America the trees and flowers use the same temperature trigger. We had a real life example of this in Pittsburgh in March 2012 when temperatures stayed in the 60s to 70s for at least two weeks. In that Too Early Spring everything happened at once.
I visited Barking Slopes on 25 March 2012 and I found both early and late spring wildflowers in bloom: Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) which normally blooms in late March or early April and large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) which normally blooms in late April.
Bloodroot and bellwort both blooming at Barking Slopes, 25 March 2012 (photos by Kate St. John)
The trees were leafing out, too.
Leaf out on 25 March 2012 at Barking Slopes (photo by Kate St. John)
June weather in March? What could go wrong?
Fewer spring wildflowers in the future.
Read more about the Too Early Spring of 2012 below. Will it happen this year? Only time will tell.
Honeysuckle leaf out 23 days apart, 2015 vs 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
6 March 2023
This winter has been so warm in Pittsburgh that flowers bloomed and plants leafed out in February. Spring is early, but how early?
Some years I photograph bush honeysuckle’s early leaves and I can tell you that leaf out this spring is 23 days earlier than in 2015. But that’s only one year.
The darkest red indicates 20+ days ahead of schedule. USAnpn called out a few examples in their 27 February report:
[As of 27 February 2023] Oklahoma City, OK is 9 days early, St. Louis, MO is 16 days early, and New York City is 32 days early. Phoenix, AZ is a week late. Seattle, WA is a week early.
How often does this anomaly happen? The darkest green on the map below shows that this is the earliest spring ever recorded in New York City while purple indicates the latest spring ever seen in southeastern Arizona.
Flowering cherry, Pittsburgh, 1 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
4 March 2023
This week the weather stayed above freezing with an extraordinary high of 72F on 1 March. The plants and trees responded by bursting into bloom and leaf. Pictured here are:
A flowering cherry tree in Shadyside, 1 March
Coltsfoot in bloom at Moraine State Park, 1 March
Hairy bittercress blooming in Shadyside, 2 March
London plane tree seed balls disintegrating (a spring thing), 27 Feb
Coltsfoot blooming, Moraine State Park, 1 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Hairy bittercress blooming, 2 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)London plane tree seed ball disintegrating, 27 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Honeysuckle leafing out, 2 March 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Now that the plants are waking up for spring Pittsburgh’s deer (over)population is finding more to eat. In front of Phipps’ Botany Hall I found a side-by-side example of yews, a favorite deer winter food, protected and unprotected from deer browse. One bush has no protection, the rest were wrapped in plastic fencing(*). You can already see the difference.
(photos by Kate St. John)
(*) The protected yews were wrapped on 15 December 2022 so, at the time of the photo, the unprotected yew was showing 10.5 weeks of deer browsing.
Woodland crocus or Tommasini’s croscus, 21 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
25 February 2023
For seven days this week the temperature stayed above freezing and hit 71 degrees F on Thursday. At 26 degrees above normal, flowers opened on plants and trees.
My favorites were the early crocuses. Native to Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania and the former Yugoslavia, these woodland crocuses (Crocus tommasinianus) are often seen in gardens but someone in my neighborhood planted them in a grassy front yard. Because the flowers bloom before the grass grows they are in no danger of being mowed.
Tomasini’s crocuses blooming in the grass, Neville Ave, 21 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
On Pitt’s campus Cornelian cherry trees (Cornus mas) produced yellow flowers.
Flowers of Cornelian Cherry, 20 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Red maples (Acer rubrum) bloomed next to Carnegie Museum …
Red maple flowers near Carnegie Museum, 20 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
… and at Frick Park the maple branches looked thick with tiny flowers, including yellowish pollen-bearing ones.
Maple trees against a blue sky. Branches look thick with small flowers and pollen anthers, Frick Park, 23 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
This week, tiny leaves opened on jetbead (Rhodotypos scandens) and a few honeysuckle bushes. Unfortunately invasive plants are first to leaf out.
New leaves opening on jetbead, Frick Park, 23 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
The coming week will be like a wet blanket: above freezing, gusty wind, lots of rain.
Daffodil buds swelling, 13 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
18 February 2023
Since a low temperature of 6°F two weeks ago, this month’s weather barely dipped below freezing (until this morning) and twice reached more than 70°F. This week I found signs of an early spring, some of which will survive today’s low of 22°F.
The swelling buds of daffodils, above, and tulip leaves, below, were evident six days ago. Both will probably survive today’s frost.
Tulip and lily leaves spring up, 12 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yesterday I found early flowers that won’t fare so well.
A few early blossoms of Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas)
Cornelian cherry in bloom, 17 Feb 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
The sunrise was gorgeous and cold last Wednesday when a group of us decided to walk at Jennings in Butler County. We saw few birds but there were ice heaves, buttress roots on an elm, and the seeds of old man’s beard (Clematis drummondii).
Ice heave at Jennings, Butler County 11 Jan 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)Elm tree with buttress roots, Jennings, Butler County, 11 Jan 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
When old man’s beard is in bloom it’s called virgin’s bower, transforming it from a young woman to an old man in a matter of months.
Seeds of Virgin’s bower, a.k.a. Old man’s beard, Jennings, Butler County, 11 Jan 2023 (photo by Kate St. John)
My friends who live north of the city have not seen many dark-eyed juncos at their feeders this winter, but juncos are definitely present at the Frick Park Environmental Education Center. Charity Kheshgi posted photos of our recent trip to Frick.
I know it’s only 12 January but a starling told me on Tuesday that spring is coming soon. I could see it in his beak.
Most of the birds that spend the winter in Pittsburgh wear the same colors all year long. Blue jays, chickadees and red-tailed hawks don’t change their look from winter to spring. European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) do make a change but it’s subtle.
In winter they live up to their name with “starry” spotted feathers, dull dark pink legs, and gray-black beaks. When spring comes their spots wear off, their legs become brighter red and their beaks turn yellow.
Last Tuesday I saw a starling whose beak was turning yellow, though still black-tipped like the one pictured below.
Pastel sunrise on 14 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
31 December 2022
The end of the year was a weather yo-yo from warm-ish winter to bone chilling cold to 60 degrees yesterday. Photos from the last two weeks span Pittsburgh and Virginia.
Above, a pastel sunrise on 14 December in Pittsburgh was followed by above freezing weather. It was so warm that by the 17th I found a bench gnome in Schenley Park and blooming trees at Carnegie Museum.
Whimisical gnome beneath a stone bench in Schenley Park, 17 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)Flowering cherry in bloom at Carnegie Museum, 17 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
That evening it dipped below freezing and stayed cold through sunrise on the 21st. The blossoms did not survive.
Frosty sunrise on 21 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
And then it got Nasty cold.
To avoid the coming winter storm we drove to Virginia on Wednesday the 21st. On Thursday in Virginia it poured, on Friday it turned sharply cold.
Finally on Saturday in Virginia Beach the temperature reached the mid 20s in the afternoon so I took a walk and found a young male common yellowthroat with bright yellow throat, olive back and shadow mask (sample photo at left). A warbler(!) had survived the coldest night of 13 degrees F and was gleaning dead insects from the sunlit grass. He was on the path in the photo at right, but of course we cannot see him.
There was a common yellowthroat warbler here in the grass! Lynnhaven Park, Virginia Beach, 24 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 26 December when I visited Back Bay NWR there were thousands of waterfowl including tundra swans, gadwall, wigeons, black ducks, ring-necked ducks, scaup, ruddy ducks, and coots (see checklist here).
The freezing weather had created odd ice formations above the water.
Ice on the reeds at Back Bay NWR, 26 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)A closer look at ice on the reeds at Back Bay NWR, 26 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
At sunset in Smithfield, VA on 27 December it was comfortably above freezing. I put away my parka.
Sunset in Smithfield, Virginia, 27 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
No coat necessary while we drove home on 28 December. And there was a beautiful sunset in western PA.
Sunset along the PA Turnpike, New Stanton Rest Stop, 28 December 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
The week ahead promises warm temperatures with rain all day for the Christmas Bird Count. Erf! Will I find the crows?
(common yellowthroat photo from Wikimedia Commons, all other photos by Kate St. John)
