Outside My Window

I saw a lot of birds in northwestern Ohio last weekend - in fact the count of species may have been a personal record - but the best bird by far was this beautiful prothonotary warbler.  He was so stunning he attracted a crowd. 

This picture may make you think the prothonotary perches out in the open all the time, but don’t be fooled.  Though his bright yellow body is easy to see before the leaves come out, he forages low on branches in woody swamps and spends his time walking among the tangles.  It took a lot of snapshots and patience before Chuck Tague got this picture. 

Seeing a prothonotary warbler is always a treat, especially because I’m from Pittsburgh.  These warblers are southeastern birds whose northern range extends to the Great Lakes, but they don’t spend any time here.  Their favorite habitat is flat land in wooded swamps, a setting notably missing from southwestern Pennsylvania.  The only place I can reliably find them is in the glaciated area near Pymatuning.  And then I’m lucky to see one even there.

All of which makes this warbler the Best Bird and my favorite memory of last week’s trip to Crane Creek and Magee Marsh, Ohio. 

For a peregrine fanatic this is a hard time to be away from Pittsburgh - what with baby peregrines in two nests and lots to watch - but migration is in full swing and the warblers beckon. There are lots of birds flying north, birds who barely stop to eat on their way to Canada, and I don’t want to miss them.

That explains why I’m at a Magee Marsh in Ottawa County, Ohio with Chuck and Joan Tague right now and we are looking at beautiful warblers. For many Pittsburgh birders a May pilgrimage to northwestern Ohio has become a tradition.

Last year when we made this trip we also took the ferry to Point Pelee, Canada, a sand spit that points south into Lake Erie. It was foggy the whole way and we were barely able to see the islands as we made the crossing. At the tip of the peninsula in Canada we found warblers galore. They too had made the foggy crossing and were desperate to eat before flying onward to their homes further north.

This bay-breasted warbler was so busy eating that he didn’t care that we watched him. He had completed most of his journey from Venezuela to Canada’s boreal forest and he was hungry. He walked the branches at eye level and cocked his head while Chuck Tague took his picture. Then he followed as we continued our walk. It was almost as if we’d made friends with him.

Not really. But the warblers do come this close during migration along Lake Erie’s shore. That’s why I’m here.

I never thought it would come to this but I’m anxious to see a catbird.  Our unusually warm, sunny weather has fooled me into thinking the calendar is further along than it is.  So if it’s May (it isn’t!) I should have seen a catbird by now.

Gray catbirds leave Pittsburgh in the fall and migrate to Florida, Cuba and the Gulf coast of Central America.  They return behind the first tantalizing spring migrants - blue-gray gnatcatchers and Louisiana waterthrushes - but before the big push of warblers, thrushes and tanagers.  I am so ready for the Big Push that I want the catbirds to get here fast so the fun can begin.

Actually, I should be careful when I say I want to “see” a catbird.  Hearing one is just as good and is far more likely because catbirds spend their time in thickets.  If you pique their interest, however, they’ll pop out on top of a bush.  That’s probably how Marcy Cunkelman got this picture.

And, yes, they “meow.”  Catbirds copy the songs of other birds in a jumble of unconnected raspy sounds.  The twist is that they meow periodically, not in a way that would fool a cat but in a way that catches our attention. 

I listened for that sound this morning but no luck yet.  This year climate change has gotten out ahead of the catbirds.

April 27, 2008:  Just saw my first catbird today.  Let the fun begin!

If you want to see birds up close, go to where the birds are, sit down on the ground and eat your lunch. 

I’m not kidding!  But first you have to understand the context.

I was prepared for rain last Sunday so I was wearing a big floppy hat and a yellow rain slicker over my backpack.  This gave me a big head and a hunchbacked look.

I was in one of the best spring birding places in Pennsylvania:  Enlow Fork, literally the “Enlow Fork of Wheeling Creek” which forms the border between Washington and Greene counties, almost in West Virginia. 

I was the only person there - even the fishermen weren’t on the scene - and the sky looked ominous.  It rained off and on.

I moved slowly.  The hungier I got, the slower I moved.  When it rained at lunchtime, I took shelter at the second bridge and opened my crinkly lunch bag.  Imagine a bird’s perspective:  a creeping yellow hunchback with a floppy green head making crinkly sounds.  How intriguing!

Zip!  A yellow-throated warbler flew past my left shoulder, stopped on the bridge for a quick glance and he was gone.

Chink!  A Louisiana waterthrush, pictured above by Chuck Tague, perched across the creek and sang a challenge to me.  How dare something so weird sit in his territory!

The rain came down harder.  I crept into better shelter and the Louisiana Waterthrush flew up for a better look.  Perched on the bridge just above eye level, he took a bath in the rain.  Awesome!

Bonus sightings:

While standing above a small pond, I saw a muskrat swim by carrying leaves.  He went back and forth several times without noticing me. 

Finally I couldn’t stand the suspense.  Animals often recognize a human voice faster than a human shape, so I spoke to the muskrat.  “Hello, Muskrat.”  He froze immediately, feet splayed out, but he kept drifting forward.  Ha!  He’s not hidden with those waves moving out ahead of him! 

Chuck Tague tells me muskrats are oblivious.  This one proved it.  (Muskrat photo from Marietta College website, click photo for origin.)

And finally, though Enlow Fork is known for its wildflowers the rain kept most of them closed.  Not so with the Virginia Bluebells as you can see in this photo from my cellphone.

So if you want to see birds up close, put on a big floppy hat, and sit in the rain.  It works for me!

Hiking is one of my favorite pastimes combining exercise, the outdoors, peace and quiet, and birds.  Winter weather and lousy footing kept me out of the woods for the past few months so I’ve been itching to get out for a real hike.

Last weekend I kicked off hiking season with a visit to the Armstrong Trail at Rosston.  It was so beautiful I had to take this picture. 

The Armstrong Trail runs for 52.5 miles along the Allegheny River from Schenley to East Brady on the path of a former rail line.  I hiked two sections:  Rosston to Logansport and Kelly to Godfrey.   Here the trail is maintained but rough and often paved with coal dust, a heritage of its coal-mining past.

Rosston and Logansport were especially good for birds.  In early spring migrating waterfowl find the river a welcome stopover when the lakes are frozen.  Last weekend Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park was still 90% frozen so no wonder the birds were at the river.

At Rosston, Crooked Creek empties into the Allegheny and is protected by a downstream island.  I could see wood ducks and ring-necked ducks feeding in the island shallows. 

The river was high and the flats at Logansport were flooded so the trees were up to their ankles in water.  Here I found many more wood ducks, ring-necked ducks, a gadwall and a few horned grebes.  One horned grebe was so close I could see his red eyes.

A curious part of the landscape at Kelly and Godfrey are the abandoned 1850’s beehive coke ovens.  They look like a line of big holes in the forested hillside (pictured at right).

It was very quiet on the trail last weekend but I could tell by the tire tracks and the signs saying “No ATVs” that ATVs use the trail extensively and are unwelcome.  Sadly, this means I won’t be visiting the trail when the weather is good and the ATVs come out.

I keep a list of the birds I’ve seen but I’m not particularly driven by it.  Last Sunday I found out how little I consult my list when I saw a life bird and didn’t realize it at first. 

If I’d known that I’d never seen them before, I would have made a bigger effort to find the Ross’s geese who’ve been visiting Allegheny County since early January.  Here they are, photographed by Geoff Malosh.

After these unusual geese spent two weeks in the North Hills, Dan Yagusic reported them roosting at Six Mile Island in the Allegheny River near Sharpsburg.  They’d made it to my home zone so I went to see them. 

Ross’s geese are very beautiful - like small snow geese with stubby bills and rounded heads.  They are unusual in Pennsylvania because they nest in the arctic – primarily at Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary – and migrate to California’s Central Valley and, to a lesser extent, to Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

Our three geese are probably a family group who strayed too far east.  Fortunately, they found a large flock of Canada geese who know where to roost and feed so they’ve stayed safe by hanging out with them.

Compared to other geese that nest in the same arctic region, Ross’s geese are the last to arrive at the spring nesting grounds and the last to leave in the fall.  If our weather holds, we may have these special geese in Pittsburgh for a while longer.
 

Last Friday outside my office window I noticed a steady stream of crows flying west-northwest into Oakland.  They were coming in to roost.

I went back to the task at my desk but when I looked up again the stream was still there, still steady.  Amazing.

I usually don’t try counting crows because I lose track but I remembered Dr. Tony Bledsoe telling me how he estimates flock numbers by counting the rate of birds during a given period of time, then measuring the time.

I picked a point of reference and set my stopwatch.  200 crows per minute.  Now all I had to do was watch until the stream ended and check the rate of crows periodically. 

I watched until it was too dark to see them.  I checked the rate a couple of times and they still flew in at 200 crows per minute.  Even after dark they kept coming, though the rate seemed to drop, but at that point I couldn’t be sure because they matched the sky.

From start to end, it was 70 minutes.  14,000 crows.  And those were only the crows I could see!  Judging by reports of crows elsewhere in Pittsburgh, the total number could be two or three times that.

In about a month, the flock will begin to disperse.  In the past few weeks they’ve changed their start and end points, and anyone who thinks “as the crows flies” means a straight line ought to watch this flock.  Even their flight path curves in the sky.

What a spectacle!  I’ve been to Nebraska to see sandhill crane migration and to Middle Creek to see snow geese.  Crows aren’t as “nice” as cranes and geese but they put on just as big a show.

           The photo is a Pittsburgh crow roost at dawn by Doug Bauman.

Outside my office window in the afternoon, I see flocks of crows, robins and starlings heading for the roost.  Lately it occurred to me that I’m able to identify them at a glance, not by looking at the individual birds but by looking at the shape of the flock.  This skill was particularly useful at the robin roost on January 6 because it was too dark to see individual birds.  

As you can see in the pictures above, the flock shapes can be different even in birds of the same size.  From left to right are four flocks:  American robins, European starlings, double-crested cormorants and tundra swans.  (First two photos are by Tom Pawlesh, last two by Chuck Tague.)

Here are some flock shapes I can think of: 

• American robins: loose flock, widely spaced.  Each bird maintains the same relative position within the flock.
• Starlings and pigeons: tight flock, synchronicity. Every bird makes the same move at the same time.
• Double-crested cormorants:  J-shaped flock or a long line.  The flock looks scraggly.
• Geese and swans:  V, J or crescent-shaped flock.
• American crows:  A loose flock in which each bird has his own idea about where he wants to be.  Individuals show considerable positional movement within the flock.  The birds look like black rags flapping in the sky.
• Blue jays:  A loose flock so widely spaced that they sometimes look like they’re not traveling together.  Individuals maintain the same relative position within the flock.
• Cedar waxwings and American goldfinches:   The flock moves in unison but individual birds change position within the flock, mostly by moving up or down.  American goldfinches say “potato chip” as they fly.
• Small finches, common redpolls:  Fly fast in relatively tight flocks.  The flock moves in unison.  Individuals zip forward or slow down but maintain positional integrity. 
• Cowbirds: have a cool hopscotch pattern as they sweep across a field searching for food.  (comment from Chuck Tague)
• Brown pelicans: The flock travels in a long line, skimming the surface of the ocean.  They will even skim the surface of high rise buildings at the beach.  Each bird synchronizes wing movement with the flock:  first bird flaps downward, then second bird, then third, then fourth…
• On water American coots huddle close together in an extremely dense flock in the presence of a bald eagle.
• Turkey vultures:  Soaring birds.  Each bird goes his own way but they stay together.  They hate to flap.
• Cranes: Soaring birds who travel in flocks, sometimes in a loose V.
• Hawks and falcons:  no flock at all.

Not “eruption,” which is a violent bursting out, but “irruption” which is a bursting in, an invasion. 

This winter is an irruption year for birds.  Three of the invaders are pictured here by Mark McConaughy at Bushy Run Battlefield’s feeders.  They are common redpolls, a very small finch with a red cap and black chin who normally lives in the boreal forest and taiga of Canada and Alaska.  (The male has a rosy chest.)

Last Sunday I went to Bushy Run to see these tiny invaders because I hadn’t seen them for 10 years - not since the irruption of 1997-1998.  That’s how infrequently they come this far south.

Why do they stay north most years but visit us occasionally in winter?  Ron Pittaway of Ontario Field Ornithologists monitors food supplies in the northern forest and makes a winter finch prediction every year.  This year the tree seed crops of birch, alder, spruce and fir are all quite low.  The winter finches would find little to eat in Ontario.  He predicted an irruption.

Redpolls, who thrive on birch and alder seeds, are not the only species to invade southwestern Pennsylvania this winter.  Others include:

• Evening grosbeaks, a large yellow seed-eating finch with a very large beak (’gros’ means large in French).  Evening grosbeaks used to be abundant but are declining because their summer food, the spruce budworm, has declined in recent decades. 
• Pine siskins, a small, brown, striped finch with a yellow splash on his wings and tail.  Pine siskins eat spruce and fir seeds in winter.  They also visit feeders.
• Northern shrikes, a predatory songbird who eats birds, insects and small mammals.  The shrike doesn’t have sharp claws so he must impale his prey on spikes or barbed wire to eat it.  This bird came south because his prey did. 

I saw a northern shrike in November at Moraine State Park and redpolls last Sunday.  I’m still hoping to see evening grosbeaks and pine siskins before the irruption ends.  I almost want winter to last a little longer so I have more time.  Can you believe it!

Well, to be exact, there’s a sandhill crane at Ethel Springs reservoir between the village of Peanut and the town of Derry.  (The reservoir is also called Derry Lake.)

Sandhill Cranes are unusual in Pennsylvania and unheard of in the Laurel Mountains so it was quite surprising when this one showed up last month. 

Most sandhills breed in Canada and the western U.S., then migrate to Texas, northern Mexico and Florida for the winter.  They usually travel in flocks and family groups but this one is alone and far off its migratory path.  Cranes feed and breed in open marshes and wet grasslands.  Perhaps the lake was this bird’s last best choice when it saw the mountains up ahead. 

The crane survived our early January cold snap by hanging out with the resident mute swans and mallards.  I suspect some kind-hearted folks made sure it had something to eat.  People walk and jog on the lake path yet the crane is as unconcerned by humans as the ducks are. 

Cranes are huge birds - four feet tall - and unmistakable.  People sometimes confuse them with great-blue herons so that may be why this one is not stirring up a lot of attention. Birders, however, are pretty psyched.  Tim Vechter has been watching the crane for a few weeks and provided these photos. 

I hope the sandhill crane enjoys its stay and makes it safely home to Canada in spring.  It will certainly have quite a story to tell when it gets there.