Outside My Window

“For this was Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

In 1382 Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem to celebrate the king’s engagement.  Years later this one line from the Parlement of Foules (The Parliament of Birds) caused Valentine’s Day to be associated with romantic love.

Chaucer didn’t mean the Saint Valentine of February 14.  He would have known that most birds don’t court in February.  But they certainly court on May 2, the date of the king’s engagement, the feast day of a lesser known Valentine.

The rest of Europe celebrated a more famous Saint Valentine in February, so by a series of mistakes we celebrate love today and save May 2 for birding.

(American coots, photo by Steve Gosser)

In just over a week I’ll be leading a Winter Tree Walk in Schenley Park.  Click here for more information.

For humans the sea is the last frontier, a place so foreign we think it’s uninhabited.  But it’s not.  The open ocean is home to millions of birds we never see on land:  petrels, albatrosses and storm-petrels.

Acclaimed ornithologist and author, Steve N. G. Howell, has written an excellent reference book about them, newly published by Princeton University Press. Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America describes in detail all the tubenoses (Procellariiformes) found off the coasts of North America.

Tubenoses earned their name because their nostrils are encased in tubes on top of their straight, hook-tipped beaks.  The structures help them smell their food, even in the dark, and excrete salt from the seawater they drink.  Tubenoses are excellent fliers and often make long migrations, sometimes circling an entire ocean in both hemispheres.

The book’s introduction helps us understand the sea and the birds who live there.  The oceans are mobile and full of currents, windy on the edges, windless in the middle with hotspots of abundance and places as barren as a desert.  The food supply can change in a day, in a season, and with storms.  The birds live on the wind.

The species descriptions are incredibly detailed with field identification, plumage and molt, distribution, and behavior.  Every account is richly illustrated with photographs of the birds and related or similar species.  The photographs are amazing, sharp and clear, even when there are towering waves in the background.  Quite a feat in a rocking boat!

The best tip in the book is one that has helped me on the few pelagic trips I’ve made in the Gulf of Maine.  Before you go out to sea, study the birds you’re likely to encounter (only 12 to 20 species on a day-trip, of which 4-10 will be tubenoses).  Early study really helps because it’s hard to juggle a field guide while observing birds on a windy boat.

Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America is a solid reference guide.  At 500 pages it weighs 4 pounds.  You might think this is too heavy to carry in the field — certainly it’s much more detailed than a field guide — but consider this.  To see these birds you must be on an ocean-going boat that has tables where you can set the book down and study it while you motor out to sea.

If you’re planning to see or study tubenoses you’ll want to own Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America by Steve N. G. Howell.  Click on the image above to read more about the book and buy it at Princeton University Press.

(book cover from Princeton University Press)

p.s. If you have the book in hand, check out my favorite photograph on page 66.

If you want to see bald eagles in Pennsylvania, winter’s a great time to do it.

Bald eagles eat fish so they always live near open water.  When the lakes freeze they move to the rivers.  When the rivers freeze they congregate near the open tailwaters at dams.

And thus was born the Annual Eagle Watch at Kinzua Dam in Warren County, PA.

This year’s event at the Big Bend Recreation Area will be held on Saturday, February 4 from 8:00am to 2:00pm.   View the eagles through spotting scopes at three observation areas:  Big Bend Visitor Center (warm up indoors with hot chocolate!), Riverside Watchable Wildlife Trail and Viewing Platform, and on the dam.  Those over 18 must show a photo ID to walk out on the dam.

In addition to eagle watching David Donachy of the PA Game Commission will present a program on the success of Pennsylvania’s bald eagle restoration, and Kinzua Cachers will hold a geomeet to find several temporary caches in the area.

The event is free, sponsored by US Army Corps of Engineers, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Penn Soil Resource Conservation and Development Council, Kinzua Cachers, and the Allegheny Outdoor Club.

While you’re up at Kinzua Dam you’re just 10 minutes from downtown Warren where WQED-FM’s morning host Jim Cunningham recommends the Plaza Restaurant.  Staying overnight?  You can get a discount at the Warren Hampton Inn if you tell them you’re coming for the Eagle Watch.

Click here for more information, or call Steve Lauser, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at (814)726-0661 or Bill Massa, Allegheny Outdoor Club, at (814)723-2568.

Keep your eyes open for eagles as you drive upstate.  Eagle sightings are more common than ever before.  Here are some recent sightings in Pennsylvania.

(photo by Steve Gosser, near Crooked Creek dam in Armstrong County)

Here’s a chance to practice the winter tree identification skills I’ve been blogging about on Wednesdays.

On Saturday, February 18, 1:00pm – 3:00pm, I’ll lead a Winter Tree Walk in Schenley Park.

Meet me at the Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center at 1:00pm and we’ll walk the trails to see some of the trees I’ve highlighted.

Bring a field guide or the Winter Tree Finder, binoculars or a hand lens so you can see the details, and quarters for the parking meter (unmetered parking is a bit of a walk).  Prepare for cold weather and dress warmly.  We’ll be moving at the speed of botany (slowly!) so expect to be standing out in the cold.

For directions to the Visitor Center, click here and scroll down to the heading: “Directions to Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center, 101 Panther Hollow Road.”  The Visitor Center is open from 10am to 4pm with food and hot chocolate.  Come early and eat lunch.  Here’s the menu.

I hope February 18 will be as nice as the day in December when I took this photo.  Watch my blog on the morning of February 18 for final details.

Hope to see you then.

(photo by Kate St. John)

p.s. If you have questions, leave a comment.  I moderate the comments so I’ll be able to read and respond privately.

May the New Year be filled with birds and joy!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

During the December festival of Saturnalia, Romans threw their social norms out the window.  They partied, gave gifts, ate, drank and gambled.  They also engaged in role reversals in which masters served food to their slaves and the slaves could disregard their masters.

According to Wikipedia, “Romans of citizen status normally went about bare-headed, but for the Saturnalia donned the pileus, the conical felt cap that was the usual mark of a freedman. Slaves, who ordinarily were not entitled to wear the pileus, wore it as well, so that everyone was “pileated” without distinction.”

Just like this woodpecker.

(photo by Dick Martin)

Peace on earth.

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(photo by Steve Gosser)

I don’t own a camera but I love great bird photos, so this workshop caught my eye.  Maybe some of you would like to attend. 

What: Photography Workshop at the National Aviary, Pittsburgh, PA
Who:  Led by National Aviary educator and professional photographer Nicole Begley
When: Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012.  2:30-4:30 pm
Cost: Special Member price   $36

Click on the photo above to read all about it on the National Aviary website.

(image from the National Aviary)

The most fascinating principle I learned from Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire is that the plants humans want (desire) are the ones that thrive.

Thanksgiving is a good reminder that this principle applies to turkeys, too.

Humans have probably hunted wild turkeys since Native Americans first arrived on this continent.  The pre-Columbian Mexicans domesticated wild turkeys between 800BC and 200BC.

When Spanish conquistadors arrived 2,000 years later, in the early 1500s, they agreed that domestic turkeys were quite tasty and shipped some back home.  Turkey became such a popular food in Europe that when the English settlers came to North America they brought domestic turkeys with them.

Wild turkeys were at their peak.  Then things went downhill.  Over the next 200 years habitat loss and unregulated hunting decimated the wild turkey population until there were only a few thousand left in Pennsylvania.

They could have gone extinct in eastern North America.  Our desire brought them back.

In the late 1800′s Pennsylvania realized that hunting had to be regulated.  The newly formed Pennsylvania Game Commission banned turkey hunting and rebuilt the population by stocking birds from Mexico.  Then in 1929 they began a propagation program that raised wild turkeys for release into the wild.

This combination worked so well that today Pennsylvania’s wild turkeys have a thriving population of over 360,000 birds.

Wild turkeys are smart about predators, as we learned on PBS’s My Life as a Turkey. They’re wary where hunted but relatively easy to see in Pittsburgh’s suburbs and city parks.

So on Thanksgiving Day it’s interesting to reflect that most of us eat domestic turkeys.  Our desire to eat them nearly extirpated wild turkeys and that same desire brought them back.

Turkeys could be a chapter in the zoology of desire.

(photo by Cris Hamilton)

p.s. If you missed My Life as a Turkey on PBS, you can watch the full episode online here.