Erin Southerland

September 22, 2023 by Erin Southerland

2023 Point Counts at Powdermill Avian Research Center

by Grace Muench

Since 2013, field technicians at Powdermill Avian Research Center have gathered data about breeding birds on the 2200-acre Powdermill Nature Reserve through point counts. This wildlife survey term denotes tallies of every bird detected by sight and sound by a single observer located at fixed, predetermined positions for specified time periods, along with rough estimates of each bird’s distance from the surveyor. On many days this summer I was the surveyor, and the experience was enriching.

Powdermill is divided into ten sectors containing eight to eleven points, and during June and early July, I visited a different sector each day to conduct ten-minute point counts. I surveyed each sector twice, for a total of 190 different counts. Point counts can tell us about densities of birds in the immediate area, trends in the regional populations, species proclivity for a certain habitat, and more. Because Powdermill’s point count locations overlay plots from a vegetation survey that was completed at Powdermill in the mid-2000s, the paired data give us valuable information about the forest ecology on the reserve.

Pileated Woodpecker — *Credit: Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History*

On the first day of point counts, the Porcupine Ridge trail acted as the main access corridor for many of the points in the sector. While walking along the trail to the last point of the day, I heard an unfamiliar noise. It sounded like several incessant hollow bark-like calls, and in the far distance I could hear Pileated Woodpeckers. Knowing that these woodpeckers primarily nest in dead trees, I began to search for nestlings. At the very top of an old, dead chestnut oak tree with almost no bark, I saw three heads poke out of a cavity, calling to the parents who were now close by and began acting defensively. While I had heard Pileated Woodpeckers in almost every sector this summer, this was the only nest that I observed, and it was the first of many incredible sightings.

Shortly after completing surveys at every point in all ten sectors, I restarted from the beginning. The particular sector I surveyed on June 11 has about a one-mile-long hike uphill to get to the first point. Three quarters of a mile in, I saw some movement to my right and redirected my attention. A yearling black bear was running up and down a fallen tree, stopping only briefly to scratch himself. I could tell the bear was a yearling by the shape of the head, along with the long and slender legs making the bear look tall. The bear ran across the fallen tree two or three times before he noticed my presence. He very slowly turned himself to look in my direction, paused for a few seconds at most, and took off into the forest.

Pennsylvania is also home to the Timber Rattlesnake, which brings me to my next animal encounter. I was walking through a mountainous, hilly second growth forest. The understory was filled with green briar and stinging nettles, so I had my eyes on the ground to minimize the chances of being stuck or stung by these plants. The walk from one point to the next was about 250 meters, or 0.16 miles. There are often obstacles like fallen trees, some of which are easy to step over, but others I had to go around. As I approached a fallen tree, I heard an unfamiliar noise. Though unfamiliar, the rattling sound was unmistakable. A few meters down the fallen tree was a large, perfectly coiled dark phase Timber Rattlesnake. I estimated this snake was four to five feet long, and it was clear that there was a meal moving through the snake’s digestive tract. The snake had eight rattles, specialized hollow scales which are added, one layer at a time, each time the reptile sheds its skin. I was lucky to be able to observe the snake from a safe distance for a few minutes before I headed to the next point.

The last day of point counts was also one to remember. About halfway through the final point of the sector, something about 250 meters away made a noise that I can only describe as a woman screaming. Immediately, all birds stopped singing and flew up into the canopy. I knew this animal call. It was a bobcat! This scream is referred to as “caterwauling,” and the sound is produced primarily during the mating season. After hiking back down to the avian research center, I was lucky enough to spot a different bobcat! A relatively small bobcat was hiding next to a structure near the bird banding lab, stalking the eastern cottontails that were foraging in the grasses. After a few minutes of inching closer and closer to the rabbits, the bobcat pounced. The rabbits frantically ran in all different directions, and the bobcat was left empty-handed.

bobcat laying in the grass — *Credit: Grace Muench*

After completing the 190 point counts, I rejoined the banding crew to finish the breeding season and to prepare for fall migration. I will always remember encountering and observing incredible wildlife, seeing my lifer Cerulean Warbler, and all that the Powdermill staff has taught me this summer. I can’t wait to learn more this fall!

Grace Muench is a Field Tech at Powdermill Avian Research Center.

We Get Questions: Climate Change, Hope, and Action

by Patrick McShea

a paperback copy of the book "The Sixth Extinction"

“Tell me what gives you hope?” The student’s question during a high school environmental science class in March left me scrambling to deliver a clear and honest answer. “Tell me,” she added for emphasis, “because I really want to know.”

Ten students had just listened to me explain the cascade of negative effects associated with the increasing acidification of ocean waters. The frightful phenomenon is on a scale proportional to and correlated with the climate altering changes in Earth’s atmosphere. My presentation was a summary of a single chapter in The Sixth Extinction, science writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s landmark 2014 book exploring warning signs of a coming human-induced extinction event as destructive as the five previous episodes documented in the fossil record.

In “The Sea Around Us,” a chapter whose title pays homage Rachel Carson’s best-selling 1951 book by that name, Kolbert frames her ocean report with an explanation of a vital large-scale chemical interaction:

Ocean covers seventy percent of the earth’s surface, and everywhere that water and air come into contact there’s an exchange. Gases from the atmosphere get absorbed by the ocean and gases dissolved in the ocean are released into the atmosphere. When the two are in equilibrium, roughly the same quantities are being dissolved as are being released. Change the atmosphere’s composition, as we have done, and the exchange becomes lopsided: more carbon dioxide enters the water than comes back out.

Much of the chapter consists of Kolbert’s account of her visit with scientists studying marine life in a bay of the Tyrrhenian Sea where water chemistry has long been impacted by carbon dioxide-rich discharges from submerged volcanic vents. The narrative helped the students understand how researchers use models to make predictions, and that ecological models are not always computer simulations. In a summary of acidification impacts in the study area, Kolbert notes limpet shells bearing “deep lesions through which their owner’s putty-colored bodies can be seen.” Perhaps my sharing of this type of graphic detail spurred the student’s urgent question about hope.

My answer, which lacked quotable coherence, involved trees. Speaking directly to the questioning student, but addressing the entire class, I explained how for more than a decade my New Year’s resolution has been simply to learn more about trees, and that months earlier a New York Times profile of renowned medical biochemist and botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger had been particularly instructive. Her endorsement of global forest restoration to mitigate the effects of climate change is clear, and some of her research has identified biochemical connections between forests and the sea.

Although I’m not certain my answer alleviated the student’s concerns, I’ll lead with trees if the question of hope comes up again. However, because of a subsequent encounter with another student’s direct question, my answer will also include a human element.

*CRSP Project Climate Cards are designed as discussion prompts.*

In early April, in collaboration with staff of the Mercer County Conservation District, I was one of two museum educators who spent a morning at that organization’s Munnell Run Farm headquarters assisting teams of local high school students in building climate change background knowledge as preparation for competition in the state-wide Envirothon. As encouragement for full participation in discussions, we relied upon colorful issues-focused information cards that were co-developed with partner organizations during the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership project. The climate cards were effective tools, but in one session a student with deep interest in climate change issues used a direct question to announce her enthusiasm for short cutting the process: “What should I do? I’m sold on all this, so tell me, as a high school student, right now, this month, this year, what should I be doing?”

I advised her to become as well informed as possible about climate change issues so she could better recognize solutions and mitigation efforts, and more effectively represent herself, her school, her family, and her community at relevant hearings or other public meetings. What I couldn’t articulate was that her engaged stance was something I could later point to as a sign of hope.

Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh offers free membership for teens. For additional information please visit the teen membership info page.

Patrick McShea is an educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Do No Harm: Dealing with Spotted Lanternflies

by Jonathan Rice

Spotted lanternflies are a “true bug,” cousins of the cicada and stink bug. Unlike our native bug species, these invasive bugs feed on a very wide variety of plants and don’t have enough native predators or parasites to keep their population in check. Their favorite food is tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which is already widespread in our area. This means their population is exploding, and Pittsburghers are looking for ways to get rid of them.

There’s no special pesticide that targets the lanternflies. However, we can outsmart them.

Spotted lanternflies display a unique behavior of climbing up tree trunks (or any other vertical surface), falling to the ground, and climbing up again. This is repeated many times throughout each stage of their life cycle. By using this behavior to our advantage, we can trap spotted lanternflies. The best currently used traps include circle traps and oviposition traps, which corral the lanternflies so they can be contained and destroyed. You can make circle traps as a DIY project, or you can order them premade.

Sticky traps: to stick or not to stick?

Although sticky traps (tape, sticky sheets, and glue traps) have been suggested in the past for spotted lanternfly control and are currently used by some landowners, these are extremely dangerous for birds. Sticky traps can kill many species of local birds that forage on tree trunks, including woodpeckers, nuthatches, and wrens. After the birds are stuck to the trap it becomes impossible for them to free themselves and they will die a slow and miserable death.

*Woodpecker being treated for injuries from a sticky trap. Credit: Raven Ridge Wildlife Center.*

If you find a live bird or mammal stuck to a lanternfly sticky trap, do not try to remove the bird yourself. Cover any remaining sticky areas on the trap with plastic wrap to reduce double sticking the bird (or yourself), remove the entire trap from the tree, and take it to the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center. If you must use a sticky trap, ensure it is covered with a wire mesh (hardware cloth or similar) to prevent anything larger than a lanternfly from touching it. Check sticky traps at least once a day to ensure no birds or mammals have been caught.

Jonathan Rice is Urban Bird Conservation Coordinator at Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s environmental research center.

A Summer Internship at Powdermill

by Rosie Spinola

Before my science-focused internship at Powdermill Nature Reserve, I was a virtual stranger to the forests of Appalachia. Although I’ve lived in western Pennsylvania my entire life, and frequently enjoyed exploring the woods in my hometown, often, I was simply not tuned in to the diversity and intricacies of the world all around me. My short tenure at Powdermill abruptly changed that perspective. During my internship I had the pleasure of participating in a wide variety of projects and studies, each one an eye-opening learning experience.

The internship began with a crash course in tree identification from my mentor and fieldwork partner, Andrea Kautz. Vegetation surveys were the bulk of the work performed this summer in terms of both the physical labor required and the amount of information we collected. Trees, saplings, shrubs, logs; notations about the location, size, and abundance of each instance contributed to a years-long study of the forest.

One of the major changes that we have been able to track over the years is the cataclysmic effects of the invasive Emerald Ash Borer. The Emerald Ash Borer is an invasive beetle from northeast Asia that lays its eggs in the bark of ash trees. The eggs develop into larvae that eat the cambium of the ash, destroying the tree from the inside out. Where once swathes of Powdermill land were defined by their large white ash trees, you would be hard-pressed to find a single one in today’s forest. The dead ash trees leave a hole in the canopy in their wake and, to the endless consternation of those attempting to survey the area, invasive thorny species move in.

*An example of an area surveyed this summer.*

The greatest love of my life is animals, and I got to get very up-close and personal with them when Dr. Walter Meshaka visited to perform herpetology studies. One of the studies he conducted was on snake fungal disease in eastern milk snakes (Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum). Data collection in the field involved capturing individual milk snakes from beneath strategically placed metal coverboards where the reptiles had taken shelter, swabbing their skin to obtain the DNA of the skin microbiota, and then releasing them. Walter allowed me to contribute not only to the swabbing process, but to the risky business of capturing the snakes. I quickly discovered that milk snakes have a spectrum of personalities, from the patient, perfect subjects to the ornery and bitey.

*Two milk snakes next to the coverboard they were sheltering under.*

While Walter was here, I was also offered the opportunity to aid him in studying another class of herps: salamanders. Strategically placed coverboards were again critical tools in the study, this time wooden, rather than metal, and placed near wetlands and streams instead of near open fields and meadows. The purpose of this study was to describe the species diversity and density of native salamander species. From our data in June and July, it appears the most abundant salamander near Powdermill’s streams is the charismatic Allegheny Mountain Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus ochrophaeus).

When working with Andrea, an entomologist, you can be sure that insects will be a large part of your life. We began the summer working with a personal favorite: honey bees! Powdermill maintains two hives on its property. The structures are kept healthy with supplemental food, an electrified exclosure fence (to keep out any sweet-toothed bears), and formic acid treatments to control Varroa mites. At the end of summer there was a sticky compensation for such support: We were able to collect more than eighty pounds of honey, though not without a valiant fight from the winged residents of the more territorial hive.

*When collecting raw honey, the honey that drips out of the comb must be filtered through a sieve to collect bits of wax and insects.*

Andrea also participated in a robust, nationwide study on flying insects earlier this spring. A Malaise trap (what is essentially a vertical corral for flying insects) was set up in Crisp Field, a large meadow on Powdermill property, and throughout the summer my responsibilities included sorting everything collected in this trap. This exercise was a three-month affair. I conducted an up-close and personal survey of the sheer amount of diversity found in each order of insects, an experience mirrored by the periodic aquatic macroinvertebrate surveys we performed together along streams and ponds across the property.

*We sampled macroinvertebrates from multiple locations, pictured is a large pond near the Powdermill Avian Research Center.*

From insects to reptiles to trees, each project I embarked on got me closer to truly understanding the world around us. In many ways, this meant seeing the consequences of climate change and human influence. Situations reveal themselves to be more dire than one could ever hope to understand by just reading about it. But there is hope, because understanding the world around us also means you can see just how much life worth protecting there is, if you just know how to look.

Rosie Spinola is an intern at Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s environmental research center.

The Nose that “Sees”

by Lisa Miriello

Despite the common name of the star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata), the 22 fleshy appendages at the end of its snout act more like an eye than a nose. These unique tentacles, or rays, are covered with more than 25,000 Eimer’s organs that hold over 100,000 nerve fibers (more than five times the number in the human hand) and are the most sensitive touch organs of any known mammal.

Given the mole’s poorly developed eyesight, the rays are far more useful for finding prey.

They are constantly moving and touching to identify what’s good to eat and what isn’t. Sensitive whiskers on the head and front feet also act as “feelers,” whether looking for food or navigating their way through dark underground tunnels.

close-up of the nose of a star-nosed mole — *“mole-star-nosed-4” by Brandon Motz is licensed under CC BY 2.0*

Found throughout much of eastern North America in low elevation areas with moist soils, star-nosed moles are one of three mole species found in Pennsylvania. Their preferred habitat consists of wetlands near streams, lakes, and swamps. The soft moist soil makes it easier to construct tunnels and underground chambers, and the mole’s short neck, powerful shoulders, and heavy claws make them efficient diggers. Shallow tunnels, often temporary, are used for traveling and foraging, while deeper, more permanent tunnels are used for resting, nesting, and escaping cold weather. Condylura is relatively safe from predators while underground but vulnerable to birds of prey, weasels, skunks, foxes, and snakes when out of their tunnels.

The star-nosed mole is a voracious eater that consumes 50% or more of its body weight each day. More notably, it holds a Guinness World Record for the fastest eating mammal.

Scientific studies have shown that Condylura can identify and eat prey in less than one-fifth of a second (200 milliseconds). That’s as many as five prey items per second, too fast for the human eye to follow.

Besides the worms, grubs, beetles, and other invertebrates found underground or on the surface, being near water gives them access to another hunting ground where they can find mollusks, aquatic insects, amphibians, and even small fish.

*“star-nosed-mole-3” by gordonramsaysubmissions is licensed under CC BY 2.0*.

Most moles can swim, but the star-nosed mole is the most aquatic of North American moles.

Their dense waterproof coat and large paddle-like limbs make them well suited for swimming and diving. They’ve evolved to have twice the lung capacity of other moles, and their long tail, almost one-third the length of its body, acts as a rudder. More time is spent foraging in the water than on land, and they’ve been seen swimming under the ice in winter. This remarkable mole can even smell under water by blowing bubbles, then inhaling the same bubbles to capture the scent molecules inside.

Not a great deal is known about the reproductive cycle of star-nosed moles. They’re more social than other moles, living in small colonies, and it’s believed that mating pairs stay together through the winter. Breeding season starts in early spring and the female produces only one litter a year, unless the first litter is unsuccessful. After a 45-day gestation period, two to seven pups are born in May and June. The newborns are blind and hairless with their tentacles folded against their snout. About two weeks later the eyes open and the tentacles unfurl and begin to function. The young develop rapidly and leave the nest after about four weeks, reaching full maturity at 10 months. The exact lifespan of this species is unknown but estimated to be 3-4 years in the wild.

“Baby star-nosed moles” by Hillbraith is Public Domain.

The extraordinary star-nosed mole stands out from other moles in many ways, and is certainly among the most unusual mammals in Pennsylvania. They’re not rare, but they’re not commonly seen even though they spend more time above ground than other moles. They’re active day and night, all year round, so keep your eyes peeled when you’re around water and if you’re lucky you might catch a glimpse of one.

Lisa Miriello is the Scientific Preparator for the Section of Mammals.

Hummingbird Lessons

by Patrick McShea

*A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird is handled gently during the banding process.*

Banding hummingbirds is a routine procedure at Powdermill Avian Research Center (PARC). Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are common summer residents throughout western Pennsylvania, including the Ligonier Valley where PARC facilities occupy nearly 25 acres of diverse habitat within Powdermill Nature Reserve, the 2,200-acre field research station of Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

During the spring and fall migration seasons, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are almost always on the top 10 list for highest numbers captured and banded. During the breeding season, they are proportionally represented among the various birds captured. PARC’s ornithologists open fine mesh nets before dawn and check them at regular intervals for several hours afterwards, carefully extracting the birds and bringing them to the lab for data collection, then safely releasing them to the wild without harm.

*Hummingbird bands are so small that the customary nine-digit band number is reduced to five digits with a letter prefix.*

On a Friday morning in late May, the capture, examination, banding, and safe release of one of these tiny, iridescent, long-billed birds was remarkable because of the extra observers involved. Two dozen seventh grade students from West Hempfield Middle School, part of a larger, two-bus contingent participating in a day-long science-focused fieldtrip, were eyewitnesses to the multi-step process.

The wildlife encounter made such a strong collective impression on these students that two hours later, following a working demonstration of the flight tunnel used to evaluate bird-safe window glass, and lunchbreak on the Reserve’s Nature Center grounds, the background chatter of multiple conversations markedly diminished when I mentioned hummingbirds.

“We’ll start our hike shortly,” I announced to the group as they assembled in a forest clearing for the day’s concluding session. “But before we look at some plants along the trail and micro-habitats along the stream, we’re going talk more about hummingbirds.”

As a museum educator I frequently plan group opportunities for the close examination of authentic objects. In the case of the two-inch-long glass tube I then held aloft, an explanation of ground rules for the upcoming examination experience was required. The tube contained the skull of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, and as I carefully removed the specimen and placed it in the palm of my right hand, I promised the students the same opportunity. “The skull can be safely exchanged by two transfer methods – gently dumping it from your open palm to your neighbor’s, or by picking it up by the beak and carefully placing it in the next person’s palm.”

Our collective sharing was also presented as a group challenge. I concluded the handling instructions with an explanation about how this activity is normally reserved for teachers, rather than students, and the disclosure that with less than a week left in the school year, I considered them as reputably more responsible eighth graders rather than the seventh-grade class listed on the fieldtrip schedule.

After placing the tiny skull in the palm of the student standing closest to me, I outlined for her and the waiting classmates a roughly 10-12 second procedure for an imaginative visual examination of the specimen. “Think about the bird you saw banded this morning. Consider the layers missing from the skull – the feathers, skin, muscles, and other tissues. Note especially, within the bone framework of the skull, the places where the eyes once were, space devoted to this creature’s sense of vision. And finally, before passing the skull to your neighbor, make a mental estimate of the space between the eyes, the nearly translucent bone case that contained the bird’s brain.”

Hand-to-hand circulation of the skull through the student group took a full seven minutes, time I spent relating information about Ruby-throated Hummingbirds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website. Important points included how the species’ diet includes far more than nectar, with mosquitoes, gnats, fruit flies, small bees, and spiders being well documented prey items, and how six to ten days of construction work by the female bird results in an inch-deep, two-inch diameter, branch-top nest lined with plant down, held together with spider silk, and for concealment purposes, shingled with lichen chips. Migration was also addressed, with the statement that the hummingbird banded during the morning session might have just returned to western Pennsylvania after a winter spend as far south as Costa Rica.

“My estimate, when I look at the hummingbird skull,” I volunteered, “is that the bird’s brain is the size of a couple grains of rice. What I find amazing is how that tiny brain can steer the bird over or around an enormous obstacle between where we’re standing now and the forests of Costa Rica – the Gulf of Mexico.”

When the hummingbird skull, no worse for a carefully conducted activity’s wear, was safely stowed in my shirt pocket, the trail hike to the edge of Powdermill Run proceeded. A stand of trout lily, the mud chimney of a crayfish burrow, and the distinctive tree cavity chiseled by a Pileated Woodpecker were scenery highlights, but it was a discussion of Powdermill Run’s waters that reinforced the day’s hummingbird theme.

After a streamside question and answer session raised the level of understanding of aquatic food webs, and explanations were shared about how diverse invertebrate lifeforms are indicators of clean water, I brought up the question about where the flow in front of us was heading. Through question and response, one waterway supplying another, we assembled a continent-wide watershed, from Powdermill Run to the Gulf of Mexico, as one student called from the back of the group, “The territory crossed by a migrating hummingbird.”

Patrick McShea is an Educator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

2023 Point Counts at Powdermill Avian Research Center

by Grace Muench

Related Content

We Get Questions: Climate Change, Hope, and Action

by Patrick McShea

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

Do No Harm: Dealing with Spotted Lanternflies

by Jonathan Rice

There’s no special pesticide that targets the lanternflies. However, we can outsmart them.

Sticky traps: to stick or not to stick?

Related Stories

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

A Summer Internship at Powdermill

by Rosie Spinola

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

The Nose that “Sees”

by Lisa Miriello

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

Hummingbird Lessons

by Patrick McShea

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

About

Get Involved

Bring a Group

Powdermill

More Information