Outside My Window

Yow!  It’s cold this morning!  18^oF!  Even so, there’s a spot of warmth in the woods.

Though it looks weird and smells bad, this plant is exciting to find because it’s one of the first to flower in the Spring.

This is eastern skunk cabbage, a wetland plant that’s found in northeastern Asia (Siberia to Japan) and northeastern North America (Quebec to Minnesota to the mountains of North Carolina).  

Skunk cabbage has many names but most of them refer to its smell, a fetid odor that’s sure to offend if you break or tear the plant. Foetid is even in its scientific name:  Symplocarpus foetidus.  It smells awful to us but it’s attractive to scavenging insects who pollinate the plant and possibly seek it out for warmth.

Warmth?

Yes, skunk cabbage’s other claim to fame is that it generates its own heat, a talent called thermogenesis.  The skunk cabbage spadix (the flower spike inside this purple spathe) can maintain a 60^oF temperature while the outdoor temperature is 5^oF.  Scientists have theorized that the warmth attracts insects to come inside out of the cold.

Look for skunk cabbage now and remember where you find it.  In late spring the flower disappears and in its place will be huge, bright green leaves that look so different that the plant is almost unrecognizable!

(photo by Sue Sweeney from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the photo to see the original)

Today is the spring equinox when the sun’s rays directly strike the Equator and day’s length is the same as night’s. 

On Friday the warm weather felt like May, but the woods are still brown.  At this time of year even the faintest sign of flowers is enough to get me excited.  Here’s a list of hopeful signs I’ve seen since my last phenology report only five days ago.

• Robins singing before dawn.
• Canada geese flying over my house in the city.
• A northern flicker drumming on the metal floodlight hoods at Magee ballfield. (He’s really loud!)
• Swelling buds make the trees look denser.  The red maples look hazy-red.  Some trees already have tiny flowers.
• New leaves on bush honeysuckle, an invasive plant that’s always first to leaf out.
• Red-tailed hawks mating.

My daffodils and tulips are pushing up through the leaf litter.  Today I’ll be looking for coltsfoot in bloom.

Happy Spring!

(photo of coltsfoot by Marcy Cunkelman)

As I walked to the Cathedral of Learning at lunchtime yesterday, I made a list of all the new Spring things I found despite the chilly weather:

• Crocuses blooming at Schenley Plaza.  These, in fact.
• House finches, northern cardinals, robins and song sparrows all singing.
• Male common grackles puffing up and saying “Skrinnk!” to each other.
• European starlings singing songs that sound like killdeer and meadowlarks.
• More dark-eyed juncoes than before — they’re on the move.
• A bright ice halo around the sun that became a sundog.
• Ducks and geese migrating.  (Saw a tundra swan fly north, high over the Cathedral of Learning)
• Spring peepers and woodcocks at Middle Creek last Sunday.  (none of those in the city)
• Freezing nights and above freezing days.  It’s maple sugar time.
• Immature peregrine falcons wandering and migrating.

Do you have a list of Spring things you’ve seen lately?  Leave a comment to let us know.

And about that last item in the list:  While I was observing the halo around the sun I saw a peregrine falcon fly in from the west very high up, nearly a dot.  The bird came a little lower as it approached the Cathedral of Learning (CL) but it was still quite high when it saw E2 and Dorothy mating near the nest.  It then passed over the CL to the east and used thermals to rise higher and higher. From below it looked dark, perhaps a juvenile.  When it was a tiny dot in my binoculars it moved off to the north.  I’m glad it was no threat to my two favorite peregrines. It was just passing through.

(photo by Kate St. John)

p.s.  Here’s a definition of phenology and a list for Western Pennsylvania.
p.p.s. This is my 1,000th blog entry.

Just as winter is turning into spring, winter weeds will soon become spring flowers and this Wednesday series will morph into a flower show.

But it will take time.

Now that the snow has melted — at least in Pittsburgh — the dormant plants have reappeared. Here’s one you’ll find easily. 

Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is a non-native biennial that overwinters as a basal rosette of fuzzy leaves, 4″ to 12″ long. 

The big rosettes are one year old.  This summer each will grow a flower stalk two to eight feet high, studded with 5-petalled yellow flowers. 

After the plant flowers, it dies, but its seeds disperse to become more mullein plants in fields and along roadsides. 

There is never a shortage of common mullein.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

The birds are anxious for spring to come.

Every morning a northern cardinal sings outside my window before dawn.  Some days he begins as much as an hour before sunrise, then pauses and starts again a half hour later.  He isn’t singing all day yet, but he’s getting ready.

On good days the Carolina wren pipes up after Mr. Cardinal has been singing for a while.  The wren is not as persistent.  He sings a couple of “tweedles,” then waits for first light.

The crows have been “singing” too.  Their huge Pittsburgh roost is about to disperse but that just makes them louder and more raucous as they fly before dawn.  They’re in a rush to be somewhere but I can’t tell what direction they’re going because it’s too dark to see.  They’re easy to hear, though, even the distant crows.  All of them have something to say.  Maybe the message is, “See you next winter.”

It’s March!  Yesterday was like a lion.  How soon will March be a lamb?

(photo by Cris Hamilton)

I couldn’t resist this title even though these are actually sweetgum balls.

Sweetgum trees are a southern species whose natural northern limit barely extends into Pennsylvania.  However, they’re a favorite street tree so you’ll find them further north. 

Sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua) have star-shaped leaves with 5-7 lobes.  They’re easy to identify in winter because their woody seed balls dangle from the branches until spring.  The balls look spiny but they don’t hurt. (*)

At this time of year the seed balls start to fall off the tree and litter the ground below.  If you’re not looking up, that’s how you’ll discover you’re near a sweetgum tree.

My strangest encounter with these “gumballs” was while participating in the Mt. Davis Christmas Bird Count in Somerset County, Pennsylvania about ten years ago.  At one of our stops during the count we got out of the car on a bottomland near a creek and an old farmstead.  Parked in what used to be the side yard was an abandoned Volvo stationwagon and inside the back of that car were thousands and thousands of sweetgum balls.  It was filled to the windowsills.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to collect those “gumballs” and then they left them there.  I wonder why.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

(*) Sweetgum balls are different here in Pittsburgh than they are in their natural range. See the comments!

When white-throated sparrows have yellow lores, you know that spring is on its way.

If this sign is not enough, today’s high temperature will be quite convincing.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelmam)

We’re having ugly weather here for the next two days.  Freezing rain, rain, sleet, ice and then gusty winds, falling temperatures and snow showers by tomorrow afternoon.  Yuk. 

Will spring ever come? 

Yes!  I’ve already seen a few signs of spring.  Here are some hints of good weather to come:

• American goldfinches are slowly molting into their yellow, breeding feathers.
• Red-tailed hawks are soaring in pairs.  Sometimes they perch side by side. 
• Peregrine falcons have begun courting.  E2 is bringing breakfast to Dorothy at the Cathedral of Learning.  Louie has been calling to Dori at the Gulf Tower, “Come here!”
• Song sparrows, Carolina wrens and northern cardinals are singing at dawn.
• Starlings’ beaks are starting to turn yellow.
• By the end of this month, the flocks of crows will begin to disband.

Hang in there.  Spring is coming.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman, who noticed this turning-yellow goldfinch.  Thanks, Marcy!)

The trees are bare in Pittsburgh.  Last week we had a day of rain followed by gusty winds … and that was that.  All gone by November 18.

Now that the leaves are down you can see what they hid all summer.  Easiest to find are large nests of sticks or leaves but there are plenty of other treasures, some large, some small. 

Yesterday I found this hornets’ nest.  It’s so far up in the maple tree that my photo doesn’t give you a sense of scale but it’s huge.  Only a bird, a snake, or a squirrel could reach it but they won’t do so while the nest is occupied.  Hornets vigorously defend their nests!

By now the hornets are gone.  Most have died and the juvenile queens have left to hibernate underground, under logs, or in hollow trees.  Since hornets use their nests for only one breeding season, this is the time of year when it’s safe to collect a hornets’ nest for display. 

Take time now to look for summer’s secrets.  By winter’s end the nests will be weathered and broken.  Look hard and you might find the tiny, camouflaged cup nest of a ruby-throated hummingbird.

(photo by Kate St. John)

An explosion of yellow.  That’s what Jonathan Nadle said of this photo he took in Beechview yesterday.  What a beautiful day!

The trees in Pittsburgh still have leaves, but don’t assume we have some special formula for extending autumn.  This tree is yellow because it’s confused.

This is a Norway maple, so it sheds its leaves in response to fall light levels in northern Europe.  When it experiences 10 hours of daylight, which is exactly what we’ll have today, it thinks it’s mid-October.

You can take the tree out of Norway but you can’t take Norway out of the tree.

(photo by Jonathan Nadle)