http://www.wqed.org/birdblog A Bird Blog with Kate St. John Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:04:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Winter is lousy for field work but it's a good time to curl up with a book and learn something, so in that spirit I've decided to (finally!) learn more about bird anatomy.  Yes, I've watched birds for decades but that doesn't mean I know the scientific names for the parts of a ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/20/anatomy-culmen/ With so many crows in town it's inevitable they'll encounter a predator they don't like.  Pity the immature Coopers hawk in this picture!  As a species Coopers hawks have enough moxy to cope with crows but 3 to 1 is stretching the odds.  I'm sure the crows started it.  A "Coop" is ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/19/fight/ I can answer that.  Almost no one. Since midsummer we've lost more than five hours of sunlight so there's not much reason to sing.  The migrant songbirds have left and only our locals (chickadees and cardinals) and some winter visitors (dark-eyed juncoes) remain.  Most of them have nothing to say. My only hope ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/18/whos-singing/ After the leaves have fallen there's one surprising bright spot in November's forest - a yellow flowering tree nicknamed Winter-bloom. Common Witch-hazel (Hamaelis virginiana) is a shrub or tree, 10-25 feet tall, that defies the odds and blooms from September through November.  Its ragged yellow flowers aren't noticable during October's splash ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/16/winter-bloom/ In his Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold called November "the month for the axe.  ...In winter, when we are harvesting diseased or dead trees for our fuel wood, the ring of the axe is dinner gong for the chickadee tribe... Every slab of dead bark is, to them, a treasury ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/15/november-the-month-for-the-ax/ Remember how on November 7th I wrote that non-native trees are often the only ones with leaves at this time of year? Here's a Norway maple, seen yesterday in Schenley Park.  It was the only tree with leaves on this Blue Sky day. (photo by Kate St. John) http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/14/late-leaves/ Ever thought about mentoring a wild squirrel? If you enjoy these bushy-tailed creatures, have good forest habitat at your home and like to feed squirrels you're a candidate for the "soft release" squirrel program. The ARL Wildlife Center in Verona, PA has more than 50 orphaned squirrel pups who were rescued in September ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/13/adopt-a-squirrel/ Tuesday afternoon I glanced out my office window and was immediately mesmerized. A peregrine falcon was flying by, pumping hard, carrying a heavy burden.  He'd killed a pigeon over Carnegie-Mellon's campus and was taking it home to the Cathedral of Learning to eat.  Carrying prey is strenuous work.  On average, a pigeon weighs 354g while ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/12/hard-work/ I thought I'd missed my chance when I didn't write about this plant on Halloween - more on that later - but Chuck Tague's recent blog on tree buds gives me the perfect opportunity to discuss this scary looking plant.  Compared to the beautiful twigs Chuck photographed this one looks positively wicked.  ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/10/budding-opportunities/ Why is this bird in such a hurry to migrate south in mid-summer after raising only one brood in North America?  The answer is a surprise.  It turns out that some yellow-billed cuckoos raise a second family in the thorn forests of western Mexico.  And so do orchard orioles, hooded orioles, ... http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2009/11/09/messing-around-in-mexico/