With more snow on the way today in Pittsburgh we need something to take our minds off our troubles. Sea otters are the perfect solution.
Sea otters live among kelp because they eat the organisms that eat kelp. They dive to gather sea urchins, sea stars, sea cucumbers, crustaceans, a variety of mollusks, snails and bivalves. Then they float on their backs with their food set on their bellies as they open and eat their prey.
For the next two days we’ll be birding in Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge, 25,100 acres of wetlands in northern Costa Rica less than eight air-miles from the Nicaraguan border. Similar to Florida’s Everglades it is home to many of the same species including roseate spoonbills, anhingas, and great egrets. It also attracts migratory birds during North America’s winter.
“Caño Negro” means “black creek” in Spanish and was so named because the Frio River that feeds it was black from tannins and Raffia palm fruits. The river is browner now due to sediment, and so are Caño Negro waterways, but the original name has stuck. (See the lodge website for a flyover.)
During the rainy season the Frio floods the wetlands but in the December through April dry season it’s reduced to little lagoons, channels and beaches. With better weather (for us) and a lot more birds, this is the time of year to visit.
Birding is the top reason and pretty much the only reason that anyone ventures into the heart of Caño Negro where the only way to travel is by boat.
As NASA satellites continued to track A23a, it wandered and spun its way around South Georgia Island, then struck bottom west of the island in March 2025 where it has been melting in place ever since.
NASA sometimes describes this area of the South Atlantic as the “iceberg graveyard.”
Water at this latitude—about 54 degrees South—is generally warmer than the Southern Ocean [that surrounds Antarctica] and is deadly for icebergs. When Southern Hemisphere winter ends in late September / early October the return of abundant sunlight further warms the water. The lack of sea ice in the vicinity of an iceberg implies that the water is above the freezing point.
This month it was obvious, even from satellite, that A23a is disintegrating. Meltwater is ponding on the surface — visible as blue water — and trickling through the cracks in the ice, further weakening it.
Not all orcas need to visit the tropics for their skin health. Resident orcas on the Pacific coast of British Columbia, Canada use a scraping technique to shed skin. On 2 January (human) residents of Sunshine Coast, BC were treated to this unique behavior when a pod of orcas swam for 20 minutes in shallow water, scraping their bellies on smooth submerged rocks like these.
The resident orcas are so well known that were easily identified.
The group of whales has been identified as northern resident killer whales (NRKW) and the A5 pod, which comprises three different families, according to Jared Towers, the executive director of Bay Cetology.
“As of early Saturday morning, January 3, some areas in Oswego County, including Pulaski and Sandy Creek, had received as much as 4 feet (48 inches) of snow within a 24-hour period since New Year’s Day.” — Syracuse.com
The path of the storm determines which community gets hit and the storm’s intensity. Meteorologist Eric Snitil shows how the storm picked up moisture from four bodies of water.
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Indeed all the Great Lakes were ice free. Here’s the storm’s path superimposed on GLERL’s ice map. Pale blue means open water.
After nearly 60°F yesterday morning we now have snow on the ground.
When temperatures suddenly drop below freezing the National Weather Service warns us of black ice on the roadways. This dangerous transparent thin ice cannot be seen until our cars slide on it.
Black ice also forms on still water such as canals in the Netherlands, above, and a small lake in Sweden, below. It is dangerously thin to skate on it but it makes weird noises when this intrepid skater passes over it. Turn your sound up to hear it.
Winter Solstice sunrise in Pittsburgh, 21 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
28 December 2025
The painted bunting was not the only thing seen last week but it grabbed the headlines. In other news the Winter Solstice was unusually sunny (photos above and below) and I saw an Infrequent duck at Duck Hollow on Christmas Eve.
Sunny Winter Solstice day, Pittsburgh, 21 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
The common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) is a relatively small duck, closely related to buffleheads. The female has a chocolate brown head, a golden tip on her beak, and of course a golden eye. All three tipped me off to her identity.
Female common goldeneye at Duck Hollow, 24 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Common goldeneyes are far from abundant in the Pittsburgh area but actually common in Canada in the breeding season and at the Great Lakes and waterways in the American West in winter as shown on their North American abundance map below.
I had thought that, like buffleheads, goldeneyes were only found in North America but I saw them in Finland last summer. In fact they have a disjoint range on three continents as viewed from the North Pole: Europe, Asia and North America.
Yesterday Chapin Czarnecki discovered a lesser black backed gull (Larus fuscus) at Duck Hollow that drew birders to the site all afternoon. This rare visitor from Europe, Greenland and the Atlantic coast is easy to identify because he is slightly larger than ring-billed gulls, has a black back, yellow legs and a smudgy eye in non-breeding plumage. Chapin got a good photo of him for his checklist.
Birders soon noticed that there are now two species of swans at Duck Hollow, the immature tundra swan who’s been there since mid-November, and now a mute swan as well. John Flannigan captured both in the same cellphone photo. The immature tundra swan is in its typical butt-in-the-air feeding position while the mute swan bends its elegant neck to touch the water.
These two are at peace because it’s winter, and perhaps because they are the only swans around for many miles.
So it’s Double Swan Day at Duck.
PROOF! Here they are together down near Sandcastle, merely dots in my scope as seen from Duck Hollow on Double Swan Day.
Tundra swan and mute swan on the Monongahela River, 7 Dec 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
p.s. Will Duck Hollow ever see more than two swan species at the same time? Extremely unlikely! However, it’s possible to see three swan species in winter in northwestern Ohio near Magee and Howard Marshes: Mute swan (introduced), trumpeter swan (reintroduced) and tundra swan (overwintering).
p.p.s. There are six swan species on earth. Three at the same time is about the best you can do. I was curious about the ones I’ve seen so I made a table.
Yesterday it was cloudy and cold when seven of us gathered at Duck Hollow. While we looked for birds we found several surprises.
Six of us at Duck Hollow, 30 Nov 2025, 8:30am (photo by Joe Fedor)
Most amazing was the very fat rusty-orange fox squirrel (at top) who posed like a Buddha — the fattest squirrel I’ve ever seen. I’ll bet he’s overeating at a feeder in the Duck Hollow neighborhood.
The immature tundra swan first seen in mid-November was still present, though far across the river. After our group broke up Ed McKaveny crossed the Monongahela for a closer look.
That’s when I put in my Wish for two more raptor species including my favorite bird
We saw a red-tailed hawk, as I expected, but where was the peregrine I’ve seen at Duck Hollow since November?
After more than half the group had left, three of us were puttering in the parking lot when I saw a peregrine approaching from upriver. Ta dah! This bird has a full crop; none of the songbirds need to worry.
Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and can be very calm, but when the wind kicks up in November the waves start crashing and the lake reveals its hidden treasures.
On the day before Thanksgiving the wind blew steadily from the west-southwest at 25-30 mph, gusting to 50 mph in Ohio.
After that the wind died down and the lake sloshed back and forth like a bathtub. This effect is called a seiche. You can see this on the lake level graph, rising and falling stepwise after the high water mark.
