Outside My Window

If you’ve never looked at milkweed up close, this is the month to do it. 

All across western Pennsylvania a wide variety of milkweed is blooming and with it come the insects who depend it, most notably monarch butterflies. 

What else can you expect to see this month? 

Here are the highlights for early July.  Chuck Tague’s phenology has even more.

• Most birds have fledglings or second broods.  Bald eagles fledge in early July.  Robins are on their second or third set of eggs.
• Cedar waxwings and American goldfinches are just starting to nest.
• Some shorebirds begin their fall migration.  Watch for short-billed dowitchers and yellowlegs at pond edges.
• The first cicadas begin calling.  In Pittsburgh they used to emerge around July 15th but I’ve noticed that date has moved up in the last 10 years.  How early will they be this month?
• Katydids will start to “sing.”  As a child I never heard katydids but I often heard about them as joke on my first name.  They’re a much better bug than the jokes were.
• Look for flowers, fruits, dragonflies, butterflies and moths. 
• And don’t forget to look closely at milkweed.  If you find small white dots on the underside of the leaves, they are monarch butterfly eggs.

(close-up of Common Milkweed by Marcy Cunkelman)

True to their name, tree swallows nest in hollow trees - or in the next best thing, bluebird boxes.

When they arrive in early spring, their first and most important activity is to find a nest hole.  Suitable nest sites are scarce, so tree swallows are aggressive about claiming them and will fight - even kill - another tree swallow of the same sex who dares to claim their nest hole.  At this stage it can get gruesome.  If a site has nestlings and the male dies, the new male may kill the widow’s young.  Females have been known to kill the young of others to make the site become available.  So much drama!

But there are other challengers who want nest holes.  House wrens, house sparrows and northern flickers will destroy tree swallow eggs and nestlings if they can.  Eastern bluebirds also want nest holes but they get along with tree swallows if two boxes are provided near each other, one for each species. 

Aside from nest site competition, tree swallows are very social creatures and tend to nest near each other if enough sites exist.  Once a site is selected the female builds a nest inside it and adorns it with feathers.  Even if she arrived weeks earlier, she waits to lay her eggs in May so the babies will hatch around June 1.  Both parents feed the young, making 10-20 trips per hour to keep those yellow mouths filled! 

Now it’s July and all the tree swallows are about to fledge.  Next month they’ll be on the move in large flocks, headed for Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Watch them while you can.

(photo by Kim Steininger)

While many birds still have babies in the nest, the season is over for our peregrine falcons.  Their nestlings fledged in early June and their young will soon be off on their own.

In July the webcams show us nothing but shadows, weeds and old feathers.  Rather than pay to broadcast an empty nest the Pitt webcam stopped streaming in mid-June and the Gulf Tower camera will stop soon. 

It’s a shame to have nothing to watch.  To fill this gap - and because I miss seeing the peregrines myself - I made a slideshow of Pitt’s season highlights for my blog and for the Aviary’s website.  Click here or on E2’s picture for the blog slideshow.  The Aviary’s will be slightly different.

Meanwhile, I’m sure you’re wondering how I got this recent close-up of E2 since I just said nothing’s on the webcam. 

All year long E2 avoids the limelight.  Unlike Dorothy, E2 prefers not to perch near windows.  He avoids having anyone see him up close and this makes it extremely hard to read his bands and confirm that he is indeed the peregrine father at Pitt.  

The solution is rather simple.  In July E2 likes to visit the empty nest - who knows why - so we zoom the webcam and use the motion-detection snapshots to read his bands.   Here he is four days ago blatantly presenting his banded leg to the camera. 

If I go by his appearance I’m sure it’s E2 with his white forehead and swaggering stance, but his bands are a little hard to read.  I’ll have to wait for another good snapshot to be sure.

(This and the slideshow photos are from the National Aviary’s webcam at Univ. of Pittsburgh)

Last week I discovered an American robin nest outside my study window. 

As I sit here and type, Mother Robin is making food deliveries to her tiny babies who are slightly older than the chicks pictured here.  This is probably her second brood this season.  If her first nest was very early or if it failed, this could be her third.

Now she pauses to brood her babies.  As she sits on the nest she makes a high-pitched “eeeeeeeeep” sound.  It’s a sound I wouldn’t associate with robins if I hadn’t seen one making it.  Is she calling her mate? 

Her chicks are silent, a good defense against predators at this age.  Even so, Mother Robin is wary.  My cat sits at the window as I blog and the robin is alert to Emmy’s pointy ears.  I don’t think Emmy’s noticed the robin’s nest because it’s far away and hidden by leaves.  (I use binoculars to see the babies.)  My cat is much more absorbed by the house sparrows sitting on the wire shouting at her. 

I hope all goes well for this robin family.  There are crows, grackles and blue jays on my street who would love to raid her nest.  Good luck, babies.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

I almost missed my chance this month to show you the most beautiful flower I’ve ever found in the woods.  The last time I saw one was in late May of 2006.  They bloom in June as well.

This is Pink Lady’s Slipper, a member of the orchid family that’s so rare it’s listed as endangered in some states.  That’s because it grows very slowly, deer love to eat it and people dig it up for their gardens.  Sadly, transplanting kills this plant because it won’t grow without a special woodland fungus in the soil around it.  If left alone these plants can live for 20 years.

Pink Lady’s Slipper is my secret plant.  Even where not endangered, I don’t tell the world its location because I’m afraid someone will steal it.  It’s a treasure in the woods.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

In case you haven’t heard, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is collecting photos and stories of unusual nest locations - and there are prizes!

The contest is called Funky Nests in Funky Places.  Here’s one of them from their contest entry page.  Imagine nesting on a tire.

When I heard about the contest I couldn’t resist signing up the Don’t Walk Robin from last April.  Remember her?  She was the one who nested on a Don’t Walk traffic signal.  Not only did I make her famous here on the blog but she’s now Entry #107 in the contest.

Last night I looked at the contest entries online and some of them made me laugh out loud.  The Don’t Walk Robin is a serious bird compared to Entry #5 who is nesting next to the words “Slam It.”  Check out Entries #38 and #50 while you’re at it on the Funky Nest Entries Directory.

(photo linked from Cornell University, Funky Nests in Funky Places)

Sightings of the peregrine falcons born this year at the University of Pittsburgh are harder and harder to come by these days.

Now that they’ve learned to fly, they’ve ventured beyond the Cathedral of Learning to explore other buildings and other neighborhoods.

On a good day I see two out of a possible six peregrines in Oakland.  Often I see none.  One thing’s for certain.  They’re learning to hunt.

Young peregrines learn their life skills in at least two ways  The first is by play.  Only three days after fledging juvenile peregrines chase their siblings in a game that perfects their flight and maneuvering abilities.  Soon they add mock food exchanges to their repertoire.  Two youngsters fly together, one of them flips upside down with talons extended and they pretend to exchange food the way they’ve seen their parents do. 

Their parents teach them the serious lessons.  Pictured here is an adult peregrine holding prey down for his youngster to grab in a real life food exchange.  The young peregrine is learning eye-talon coordination and the ability to catch food while flying – something he’ll have to do for the rest of his life as he hunts on the wing.

When Erie was the resident male at Pitt, he taught his youngsters these skills in the airspace between Heinz Chapel and the Cathedral of Learning.  Digby, who used to work at Heinz Chapel, told me there were many times when a wedding party leaving the Chapel in June would be greeted by peregrines calling overhead and chasing their father to grab dinner.  Digby used to warn the wedding planners that if they wanted to release doves on the campus lawn, they shouldn’t expect to get them all back!

For the past two years I’ve noticed E2 prefers to mix it up a bit.  He starts teaching his offspring near St. Paul’s Cathedral perhaps because there are more pigeons over there.  When those pigeons become wary he moves to another location.  Yesterday he was back on campus in the Heinz Chapel airspace.

What luck that I got to see them at lunchtime!  The entire peregrine family was perched on the Cathedral of Learning facing Heinz Chapel.  The “kids” were obviously hungry and restless. Suddenly E2 dove straight down the face of the Cathedral of Learning and soared away on the hunt.  

I waited under a shade tree (it was hot!) and soon the youngsters flew off the building in excitement.  E2 was returning with food.  I missed the prey exchange (my shade tree blocked the view) but I saw the “kid” who caught the prey carry it to Heinz Chapel steeple, pursued by his sister. 

Another lesson learned.

(photo by Kim Steininger)

For me the common nighthawk is an iconic species.  Its diving courtship display so fascinated me as a ten-year-old that I developed a lifelong interest in birds.

Nighthawks used to be easy to find in my Pittsburgh neighborhood in summertime. I live across the street from a floodlit ballpark where I could watch them hawking insects at dusk in the bright ballpark lights.

But not anymore.  Common nighthawks have declined precipitously in Pittsburgh and the eastern United States, so much so that some states list them as an endangered species.

Common nighthawks are not hawks but nightjars, relatives of the whip-poor-will, whose diet consists solely of flying insects including mosquitoes, moths and flying ants.  They’re incapable of torpor and must eat hundreds of insects per night so they require warm weather and plentiful bugs. 

Nighthawks range widely in the Western Hemisphere migrating from Argentina to Canada.  They used to arrive in Pittsburgh around May 5 and leave by September 5.  During fall migration hundreds of birds would pass through at dusk for two weeks starting at the end of August. 

Surprisingly, common nighthawks have not been well studied, though new efforts are underway.  What is known is that in the northeastern U.S. they used to nest in natural areas.  Then in the 1890s they began to nest almost exclusively on gravel rooftops in cities and towns.  In the 1990s people replaced gravel roofs with rubber roofs and nesting opportunities disappeared.  Meanwhile something must have gone wrong at their wintering grounds or in migration (probably pesticides) because year after year fewer migrants leave in the fall and even fewer return in the spring.

Ten years ago there were several nesting pairs in my neighborhood but last summer there was only a lone individual calling for a mate who never came.  This year he called for two weeks and was gone.  I don’t think I’ll ever again see them nest in my neighborhood.

Considering their rapid decline, I may live to see common nighthawks go extinct east of the Mississippi just as peregrine falcons did when I was young.

With human help peregrines came back.  Can we save the nighthawk?

(photo from WikiMedia taken by Daniel Berganza near Miami, Florida.  Click the photo to see the original.)

“This flower has your name on it,” said Chuck Tague when he sent me this picture of Common St. John’s wort, Hypericum perforatum.

St. John’s wort was imported from Europe where it got its name because it blooms in June and was traditionally harvested on St. John’s Day, June 24, to adorn homes and ward off evil.  It’s also an herbal treatment for depression and has been planted nearly worldwide. 

Unfortunately St. John’s wort has gone wild and is often considered a noxious weed.  It’s called Klamath weed out west and is known to poison livestock, making them photosensitive and causing restlessness, skin irritation and - ironically - depression before it kills them.  Too much is bad for people too.  Don’t go out in the sun if you consume a lot of it!

I’ve never seen an overabundance of St. John’s wort so I think of it as a pretty plant that shares my name. 

I even like the play on words it affords me.  I have a box of St. John’s wort herbal tea in my office labelled “St. John’s Good Mood.”  ;)

(photo by Chuck Tague)

A juvenile peregrine falcon prepares to fly from the edge of the Cathedral of Learning, June 2009.

(photo by Colette Ross)