Outside My Window

LATE BREAKING NEWS (1/4/13 at 4:30pm)!  We had trouble with the show archive so WQED will not run Bird Tales at 5:00pm on January 6.  Instead we will re-run Opposable Chums.

THE SHOW DESCRIBED BELOW HAS BEEN REPLACED IN THE SCHEDULE BY Opposable Chums.  Click here for a review of O.C.

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Why are we so inspired by birds?  How can we inspire others?

The answers will come this Sunday when WQED airs Bird Tales, a program that follows a dozen educators in the U.S. and Nicaragua who describe their fascination with birds and their enthusiasm that inspires others.

• Sarah Zuccarelli teaches visitors at a bird sanctuary in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire.
• Don Kroodsma records birdsong and teaches us to listen.
• Abraham Hunter is a young artist whose paintings of birds have gained national acclaim.
• Bob Gerson is a prison inmate in New Jersey whose lifelong love of birds has prompted him to write.
• And through it all we’re inspired by educators from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and teachers in Washington, D.C. and Nicaragua who are “Bridging the Americas” by uniting their students through education and conservation of migratory birds.

Birds link us to each other and to nature.  In Washington and Nicaragua, the children share the same birds who spend summers up north and winters in Central America.  They learn to treat nature with respect; some will inspire the next generation.  Along the way we’re treated to the sights and sounds of the birds we love.

Watch Bird Tales on WQED, this coming Sunday, January 6 at 5:00pm.

(screenshot from Bird Tales by NHPTV. Click on the image to watch a preview)

A cluster of poinsettias  wishing you a Merry Christmas!

(photo in the public domain from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the image to seethe original)

Have you ever seen a colorful, shiny beetle and wondered what it was?  I have.

There’s a group of beetles called Jewel Beetles that eat trees but are very beautiful.  Among them are the rainbow green Emerald Ash Borer and (perhaps) a solid green iridescent beetle I see in the spring whom I’ve dubbed The Emerald Green Bug because I don’t have a beetle guide.

But that problem is about to be solved.

In early 2013 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the University of Guelph Insect Collection and the Canadian Invasive Species Centre are going to publish a beautiful 411 page, 6×9″ Field Guide to the Jewel Beetles of Northeastern North America.

The guide covers 164 jewel beetles in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. including all of Pennsylvania.

One of the books authors, Morgan Jackson, describes the guide here on his blog and includes a cool slideshow of the emerald ash borer page.  I can tell the book is for bug lovers and entomologists yet it looks easy to use for generalists like me who are curious about the natural world.

And the book is FREE, absolutely FREE!

Click on the book cover or here to read Morgan Jackson’s blog and see if this is the book for you.  His blog tells you how to get your free copy.

I’ve already ordered mine.  Next spring I’ll know the real name of that “Emerald Green Bug.”

(cover of Field Guide to the Jewel Beetles of Northeastern North America, linked from Morgan Jackson’s biodiversityinfocus.com blog)

‘Tis the Season for giving!  If you have a Pennsylvania birder or scientist on your list, here’s a great gift idea.

The newly published Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania by Andrew Wilson, Daniel Brauning and Robert Mulvihill is now available from Penn State University Press.  It’s a comprehensive, scientific look at all the birds who breed in Pennsylvania.

The data was compiled between 2004 and 2009 by over 2,000 volunteers.  I was one of them.  We traveled the state recording the location, habitat and behavior of birds during the breeding season.  Were they courting?  Building a nest?  Carrying food?  Were the adults scolding us for coming too close?  Did we see babies in the nest?  We took notes and uploaded our observations online.  Our data became this book.

It’s a beautiful book and fascinating for its discussion of breeding trends.  The second atlas (2004-2009) was done two decades after the first one (1983-1989) and a lot changed in Pennsylvania in those 20 years. Forests were cut down for highways and strip mines, old farms became suburbs and shopping malls, intact forests matured, former strip mines became grasslands, wetlands were lost or restored, and the climate continued to change.  The birds responded in their distribution and density.

The Second Atlas absorbs me every time I open it:  the trends, the species accounts, the maps.  I’m especially fond of the great success of Pennsylvania’s peregrine falcons (pages 160-161) who went from 3 breeding pairs in 1989 to 26 in 2009.

Click here or on the book cover to read more about the Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Pennsylvania and buy it from Penn State University Press.  You can get a 20% discount online by using discount code SOC-12 during checkout.

(book cover photo from Pennsylvania State University Press)

Birders and peregrine fans!  If you’re an early-to-bed person, get your beauty rest this Thursday November 15 and plan to stay up for the 10:30pm broadcast of The Bird Guys With Vern and Bob on WQED.

It’s a fun half-hour program that follows Vern Laux and Bob Shriber as they visit Monhegan Island, Nantucket Island and the Florida Keys during fall migration.  They’re on the trail of peregrine falcons but as dedicated birders they show us lots of other birds along the way.

Vern Laux is a fun guy and excellent birder who writes a birding column for the Cape Cod Times and hosts a radio program on the Cape and Islands’ public radio stations. When a rare bird is found on Nantucket, Vern’s the one who finds it.  (Remember the first North American record of a red-footed falcon in August 2004?  That was Vern.)

Bob Shriber is a birder and television producer from New York who’s worked with Vern on several videos. When you don’t see Bob on camera it’s because he’s filming the show.

The Bird Guys have a great time as they follow birds down the East Coast.  Always hoping to see peregrines they hit “pay dirt” at Marathon Key where they see at least five peregrines in view at all times.  And that’s not all they see.  Don’t miss Vern’s encounter with a skunk!

Vern and Bob make birding fun.  Watch The Bird Guys on Thursday, November 15 at 10:30pm on WQED.

(image linked from Zap2it.com. Click on the image to see the original)

p.s.  Speaking of peregrine migration, the arctic peregrines have already made it to South America.  See Island Girl’s trajectory at the Southern Cross Peregrine Project.

This Friday November 16, from 9:00am to 4:45pm, visit Pitt’s Hillman Library for their second annual Audubon Day.  This free event includes a display of 20 to 24 prints from John James Audubon’s Birds of America, and a presentation and book signing by Roberta Olson, curator of drawings at the New York Historical Society at 2:00pm.

Click on the image above for event locations and times.

(photo from the Pitt Chronicle news release.  Click on the image to see the complete news release)

Look who showed up this morning!  It’s a British Invasion and they’re singing their own version of the Beatles Birthday song,

“They say it’s your Bird-thday
We’re gonna have a good time…
Yes we’re going to a party party.
Yes we’re going to a party party.”

Hello, Rooks! Thanks for coming all the way from Britain to celebrate Outside My Window’s 5th birthday.  Do you have any requests?

“Yes, we’ve been reading your blog and learning a lot of useful stuff about birds, weather, plants, flowers, and interstellar space.  Now we have 5 questions.”

1.  What numbers describe Outside My Window?
That’s easy.  The blog averages 577 visitors a day and creates 22% of all traffic to WQED.org.   (A big THANK YOU to my readers!)

2.  Which posts had the most readers in the past year?
Dorothy wins the prize. Top readership goes to Peter Bell’s amazing pictures of Dorothy attacking a bald eagle over Schenley Plaza.  Last year’s Falcon or Hawk? continues to win the top prize from Google search.

3. What spawned the most comments?
When National Audubon posted Have You Seen Any Blue Jays Lately? on their Facebook page it generated 63 comments, but the stand-alone prize goes to Mouse In The House with 26.  The mouse struck a cord, eh?

4.  What were your favorite photos in the past year?
Wow, that’s hard!  Here are three: Peter Bell’s Peregrine versus Bald Eagle (of course Dorothy’s always a favorite), Steve Gosser’s Chick at Tarentum and Chuck Tague’s Walking On Air.

5.  Which posts were your personal favorites?
Morning Glory clouds and Move-In Day taught me the most, but I have to say that my favorite was the coming home story of Beauty, the peregrine queen of Rochester, New York in Whose Egg Is This???.

“Oooooooo. Peregrines?!?  We do not like peregrines!”

Sorry, guys.  In compensation I’m letting you eat the entire cake.   (Now that they’re standing on it, it’s theirs!)

(party rooks by Joan Guerin)

p.s.  Do you have a favorite post?  A suggestion for new topics?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Fall migration brings waves of ducks through western Pennsylvania, so now’s the perfect time to learn more about them.

Next Wednesday, November 14 at 8:00pm PBS NATURE will premiere  An Original DUCKumentary, a delightful program about the birds who’ve mastered water.

The show opens as baby wood ducks hatch and prepare to leave their nest.  Their mother comes to greet them, then flies to the pond and calls.  Whoa!  She can fly but they must fall 70 feet to reach her!  No wings, just the will to join their mother, and off they go.  The first rule of a baby duck’s life:  Mom calls, we follow.

The baby ducklings learn and grow.  We see their tiny feet paddling underwater and slow motion video of their parents leaping from water into air.  And wow!  Their dad is beautiful!

That’s not all.  Ruddy ducks make powerful dives using only their feet.  South American torrent ducks master river rapids.  Common eiders literally fly underwater to reach the ocean floor.   And sprinkled throughout we meet the cutest baby birds on the planet — like this little redhead.

Watch An Original DUCKumentary on WQED, Wednesday November 14 at 8:00pm.  If you’re outside WQED’s viewing area, check your local PBS listings.

You’ll see ducks from a whole new perspective.

(photo from PBS NATURE, An Original Duckmentary)

Don’t forget to turn the clocks back this evening.

It’s no secret that I hate fussing with our time zone (see last year’s blog) but this week I’m trying to take a positive attitude.

I don’t like the early sunset but the silver lining will be an early dawn and the opportunity to count crows. 

(photo by Kate St. John )

In honor of the day here’s a critter whose name is Halloween.

Red land crabs, also called harlequin or Halloween crabs (Gecarcinus quadratus), are nocturnal burrowing crabs that live on the Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru. They spend their lives in sand dunes, moist forest or mangroves but they need the ocean to reproduce so they don’t stray far from shore.

From above these crabs look black and orange.  They’re even more colorful from the side.

Trick or Treat!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

p.s.  As Hurricane Sandy approached Pittsburgh on Monday many municipalities rescheduled Trick-or-Treat to Saturday Nov 3, so there will be no costumed kids at our door tonight. Kind of odd considering everything in Pittsburgh is just fine.  Not so in New York City where our nephew reports he was not flooded but has no electricity.