Category Archives: Bird Behavior

Green Woodpecker Murmurs and Shouts

Bird Behavior, Songbirds

Green woodpecker in France (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

19 January 2025

The Eurasian green woodpecker (Picus viridis) is a bit unusual. Instead of drilling trees he spends most of his time on the ground, poking his beak in the soil.

Eurasian green woodpecker foraging on ground (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

That’s because he …

Predominantly [eats] ants, chiefly meadow-dwelling species of genera Formica (winter) and Lasius (spring to autumn); generally, larger ant species preferred.  …

Uses bill to sweep away moss, dead leaves, other debris, or snow; pecks funnel-shaped holes up to 12 cm (4.7 in) deep in ground, and procures prey with action of the very long tongue; such holes may be exploited in lengthy and repeated visits. When snow cover heavy, can dig tunnels almost 1m (more than 3 feet) long to reach prey. 

— Green Woodpecker account at Birds of the World

About That Tongue: When Shaun Robson in Dorset, England worried that green woodpeckers were disappearing from his area, Jason Miller (@jasonmillerart) answered with a video that proved they’re still around. Can you hear the green woodpecker murmuring?

embedded video from Jason Miller Jason Miller @jasonmillerart on X (Twitter)

He can also be quite loud.

video embedded from European Wildlife by Lukáš Pich on YouTube

These traits may remind you of a North American woodpecker. Though not closely related, our northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) also forages on the ground for ants and shouts in the spring.

Northern flicker foraging on ground (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
video embedded from MyBackyardBirding on YouTube

… and he murmurs “wika wika wika” with his lady. (Note: In the audio below you’ll also hear the chattering of an upset wren.)

Short-Eared Owls Bring Joy to Winter

Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey
Short-eared owl in Lawrence County, Jan 2025 (photo by Steve Gosser)

17 January 2025

When Debbie and I went to Lawrence County last Sunday we knew we would see sandhill cranes but our real target, our Fingers Crossed hope, was to see a short-eared owl (Asio flammeus). Friends had told us about them and we’d seen Steve Gosser‘s stunning photos on Facebook.

We were very lucky. While we were watching the cranes a photographer drove by and told us where to find a female (dark plumage) roosting near the ground. On our way there we saw a paler bird, probably male, perched on playground equipment.

Short-eared owl, female, 14 Dec 2024 (photo by Steve Gosser)

But we weren’t lucky enough to see this!

I also re-learned a valuable lesson: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.“

I wore the wrong boots last Sunday because I forgot how much we would stand in the snow to watch birds. My feet were cold. It made me grumpy. I was not liking winter at that point.

But when I got home I put the bad boots away and pulled out my Sorrels and I’ve been happy ever since. Winter has some big advantages. Steve describes it perfectly.

Follow Steve Gosser on Facebook here. He also has a 2025 calendar featuring his photos.

p.s. The weather next week will be particularly challenging, especially on Monday 20 January when Pittsburgh’s high will be 9°F with a low of -5°F. Bundle up!

Crow Update, mid-January

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens
Crows flying over Riverview area, Dec 2022 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

15 January 2025

After the big push to find Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock for the Christmas Bird Count in late December I took a break and merely enjoyed them. Searching and counting is hard work so I didn’t look for crows and if I saw them I certainly didn’t count them. Thankfully, you’ve been letting me know what you see.

Fred’s comment yesterday makes me wonder if crows are roosting on Downtown buildings.

Last Friday, 1/10/25, just before 7 am there were thousands of crows flying around and roosted in trees of the little park on First Ave downtown (across from PNC) and perched on all the buildings around. Their collective cawing would have made conversation at normal levels difficult. Having seen similar numbers in Oakland and Schenley in the early evening, made me wonder if they make the pre dawn rally to town.

— Comment from Fred, 14 Jan 2025

Frances and Sue indicate crows might be tucked in across the river at Southside.

In recent days I have noted them flying west to east over Southside Flats early in the morning (dawn).

— Comment from Frances, 13 Jan 2025

Lots of crows roosting on E Sycamore St in Mt. Washington, starting about 30 minutes ago (4:30pm).

— Comment from Sue Thompson on 8 Jan 2025

In the past two weeks I’ve noticed crows flying east to west toward Schenley Park and the Hill District and staging briefly in Schenley before dusk.

Winter crows at Schenley Park, 21 Jan 2017 (photo by Mike Fialkovich)

So I put these 5 observations on a map. Orange is dusk, pink is dawn, the dots are staging areas.

5 observations of winter crow flock movements at dusk (ORANGE) and dawn (PINK), 13-14 Jan 2025 (map screenshot from Google Maps, annotated)

Pittsburgh’s crows may have split or moved their roost this month and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Bitter cold temperatures like last night’s 7°F prompt crows to spend the night on a warm rooftops rather than in bare trees.

UPDATE: check the comments for additional news on 15 Jan.

And here’s a treat for crow watchers: In Lawrence, Massachusetts the Crow Patrol sees crows after dark on roofs and trees using infrared cameras. Notice how crows’ eyes glow white in infrared light. 🙂

video embedded from Winter Crow Roost, Lawrence, MA on YouTube

Falconcam Crew Finds a Cache of Cuckoos

Bird Behavior, Migration, Peregrines
Pileated woodpecker skull from Pitt peregrine cache area, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

11 January 2025

Yesterday the Univ of Pittsburgh, the National Aviary, and I prepared for the upcoming peregrine nesting season by cleaning the nestbox and falconcams.

After examining the indoor side of the camera equipment Bob Mulvihill of the National Aviary and Gracie Jane Gollinger from Pitt IT braved 10°F weather on the ledge. Camera cleaning went well despite the cold weather and there was nothing to clean at the nestbox. However …

Bob Mulvihill and Gracie Jane Gollinger traverse the ledge, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Bob Mulvihill cleans the snapshot camera, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Gracie Jane Gollinger)

When Bob stepped out on the landing that leads to the cameras, we were amazed that the area at his feet was strewn with partially eaten prey. I kept a list. Some were hard to identify.

  • Rock Pigeon (Feral) 1
  • Yellow-billed Cuckoo 3 or 4
  • Black-billed Cuckoo 1
  • Pileated Woodpecker 1
  • Northern Flicker 1 (yellow feathers)
  • European Starling 1
  • Wood Thrush 2 or 3

Up to 5 cuckoos! The landing was clean when the chicks were banded on 21 May 2024 so the cache was left since then.

Bob stands among dehydrated peregrine prey: 2 yellow-billed cuckoos and a northern flicker (photo by Kate St. John)
More peregrine prey on the landing, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

The most interesting find was the skull of a pileated woodpecker. I assumed that peregrines would never capture a bird with such a dangerous beak but I was wrong.

Pileated woodpecker skull from Pitt peregrine cache area, handheld for scale, 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Female pileated woodpecker skull from peregrine cache area, found 10 Jan 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)

Why so many prey items at this spot? Perhaps it was a favorite dining area where the adults dropped off food for last year’s youngsters.

Why so many cuckoos? The Pitt peregrines have always had a fondness for cuckoos, probably because their flight is floppy which makes them easy to catch. My only regret is that the peregrines caught so many cuckoos and wood thrushes.

Here’s the crew after our successful visit.

Left to right: Dante Bongiorni (Pitt Facilities Mgmt), Bob Mulvihill (National Aviary), Doug Cunzolo (Bob assist), Gracie Jane Gollinger (with hat, Pitt IT), Megan Hinds (National Aviary), Kate St. John (“The Peregrine Lady”) — photo by Gracie Jane Gollinger

We’re ready for Peregrine Season!

Thousands of Swallows Swirl Into the Roost

Bird Behavior, Songbirds
Tree swallows (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

8 January 2025

Where have the swallows gone while it’s snowy and cold in Pennsylvania?

In January all the tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) in North America are on their wintering grounds from coastal North Carolina to Texas, the Caribbean, and Central America. Most of them are in Florida, as you can see on eBird’s abundance map for the week of 4 January.

Tree Swallow Weekly Abundance throughout its range (screenshot from eBird)

How many tree swallows are there?

In January 2012 Mark H. Vance filmed 3 million(!) of them swirling into their roost near Sarasota, Florida. His video lasts almost 9 minutes.

embedded video by Mark Vance on YouTube

As Winter Returns, Remembering Peregrines on Ice

Bird Behavior, Climate Change, Peregrines, Weather & Sky
Pair of peregrines on ice floes in the Allegheny River, 12 Jan 2018 (photo by Dave Brooke)
Pair of peregrines on ice floes in the Allegheny River, 12 Jan 2018 (photo by Dave Brooke)

5 January 2025

Harsh winter returns to a large swath of the U.S. today through Tuesday, 5-7 January. From Kansas to Delaware, encompassing the Ohio River end to end, 14 states have Winter Storm Warnings including the southern tier of Pennsylvania.

U.S. forecast map 1/5/2025, 10:52UTC (5:52am EST) from weather.gov

For Pittsburgh it means snow, maybe 3.9 inches. According to NWS Pittsburgh’s Snow and Ice Potential Forecasts this morning — graphic updated on Mon 6 January at 5:01am:

Expected snowfall in NWS PIttsburgh forecast area, Sun 5 Jan 7PM through Tues 7 Jan 7AM (map from weather.gov Pittsburgh)

After it snows low temperatures here will drop into the teens and single digits, 18°F to 9°F on Tuesday through Friday. This will be low enough to form ice on the Allegheny River as it did seven years ago when ice floes lured the Tarentum peregrines to land on the river. For a trip down memory lane see this vintage article.

Peregrines on Ice

Meanwhile if you’re going to spend time outdoors, today is the day to do it. Expect the grocery store to run out of bread, milk and toilet paper.

The Nunbird Chorus

Bird Behavior, Vocalizations
White-fronted nunbird (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

27 December 2024

White-fronted nunbirds (Monasa morphoeus) are at their most interesting when they sing in “group choruses of loud gobbling, barking notes, sustained for up to 20 minutes at a time, chiefly at the beginning and end of day.” — quoted from Birds of the World.

video embedded from ravitime nature status on YouTube

If you wanted to hear them in the wild, go to these regions of Central and South America.

Range of white-fronted nunbird (image from Wikimedia Commons)

p.s. “White-fronted” describes birds whose foreheads are white such as the greater white-fronted goose and white-fronted nunbirds.

Peregrines Ignite the Magic in Murmurations

Bird Behavior, Peregrines
Shark-shaped murmuration at Rigg near Gretna, Scotland (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

16 December 2024

This giant shark snout in the sky is a flock of thousands of common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) flying at dusk near Gretna, Scotland. As starlings gather to roost their tight flocks, called murmurations, wheel and turn in unison making beautiful patterns in the sky.

Closeup of common starlings in a murmuration (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Sometimes the flock makes a recognizable shape like the hawk-bird in this video. They aren’t trying to do this. It just happens. Wow!

(video embedded from Stuart McNeil on YouTube)

Under pressure from a predator, starlings intentionally fly closer together and shape-shift into giant blobs, making it impossible for the predator to lock on to a single bird as prey.

Starling murmuration at Eyemouth, UK

Can you see the peregrine at top right, above, and to the left below?

The only way for a peregrine to catch dinner is to break the blob. He rushes the flock, trying to separate a few starlings away from the group. The blob gets even tighter!

Peregrine pushes a starling murmuration at Eyemouth, UK (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Watch a peregrine shape-shift the starlings and ignite the magic in a murmuration.

(video embedded from John Downer Productions on YouTube)

What Are Crows Saying? Listen to the Gaps

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens, Vocalizations
Crow cawing (photo by Bennilover via Flickr Creative Commons license)

5 December 2024

Crows are so vocal that we can’t help but think their caws are a language. So what are crows saying in their big boisterous flocks before they roost?

Dr. Douglas Wacker at University of Washington Bothell (UWB) wondered the same thing so in 2017 his team began recording and analyzing pre-roost aggregations on the UWB roofs. The rooftop recordings were not enough to crack the code so now the team has turned to spectrogram analysis.

Dr. Wacker presented information on crow vocalizations at the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society in November 2024. To measure the calls they analyzed these components.

  • Syllable = a single caw
  • Gap = the length of silence between caws
  • Call = a series of caws
  • Pause = the length of silence between calls
screenshot from Dr. Douglas Wacker presentation to Olympic Peninsula Audubon, Nov 2024

The team recorded crow vocalizations in various contexts and compared the spectrograms. And they discovered an unusual thing. Crows appear to be “saying” things in the silence between their caws (gaps) and the pauses between their calls.

  • Gaps between caws: Are longer in pre-roost aggregations (evening) than in post-roost aggregations (morning).
  • Pauses between calls: Are shorter while mobbing an owl than in pre-roost aggregations.

If you want to know what a crow is saying, listen to their silences.

Crow cawing (photo by Jennifer Aitkens via Flickr Creative Commons license)

Learn more about crow language in this Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society’s video. I have set it to start nearly an hour into the meeting, beginning with spectrogram analysis of crow calls. I’ve included this 15 minute portion here because it is so interesting. Click here to see the entire 1.5 hour meeting.

video embedded from Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society on YouTube. (Starts at 58 mins into the recording)

Some day we might know what this crow is saying. In the meantime, listen to the gaps.

Crow cawing (photo by Jason Hopkins via Flickr Creative Commons license)

p.s. Dr. Wacker described an intriguing idea: The messages in human language come from our sounds. The messages in crow language appear to come from silences. Perhaps we can’t figure out what crows are saying because we aren’t used to listening to the silences.