Holding Pattern
Holding Pattern
A songbird nest, filled only with cold snow, is snugly held not only in the reaching twigs of Japanese knotweed along the creek but also in the overall crisscross pattern the branches make from a certain angle.
Right on both sides of the solstice, the days seem uniformly short and the nights long, and often the weather, however it chooses to express itself, is incessant as we take on a holding pattern as well.
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For a print of any photo, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms. For photos of lots of black cats and other cats—and even some birds as I first published this post there—visit The Creative Cat.
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Good afternoon, Bernadette! I came across your photo of a bird nest in knotweed (Dec-2013). I’m writing a paper about nesting in and under knotweed stands. May I ask where you took the photo? Do you know the maker of the nest (species)? And have you seen other nests in knotweed stands?
Thank you very much for your assistance – Erik Kiviat
January 23, 2023 at 12:33 pm
Erik, sure, this is my older version of my daily photo site, the free WordPress site. I moved to a self-hosted site several years ago and have another photo of a nest in knotweed in winter there: http://www.bernadettestoday.com/weavings/ that I posted in 2020 though the photo was from November 2019. Years ago the photos were actually from the date posted or the day before as is this photo, but now I pull them from everywhere in my file.
I actually have lots of photos of nests in that area, but I have years of photos and unless I have pulled them to feature or used them in designs or illustrations it takes a long time to find them. But these two photos are at least a decade span in time, and I can tell you I’ve seen nests in that same spot for years prior to that. It’s hard to see the nests when all the brush is grown in, but I most often see goldfinches and wrens and chickadees there especially in that spot, along with other species as well, but the nests have always looked like goldfinch or wren nests to me.
This spot is in Carnegie PA 15106, along Chartiers Creek. In 1972 a flood control project was finished that deepened and widened the channel, added hardscape at some of the sharp bends and rip rap in other areas. It really did stop the annual flooding until 2004 when Hurricane Ivan caused a 500-year flood. The channel had been maintained through the 70s and 80s but had become overgrown by that time, but that wouldn’t have helped in this instance. Knotweed is opportunistic and came up through the rip rap every year. It was cleared again and regularly sprayed in the years just after the 2004 flood, but obviously they let it go again, funding issues. They’ve been keeping after the larger growth, trees and such, since then. The knotweed still comes up but individuals have been hand clearing that to encourage native plants that naturally occur on the steep banks.
I live a few blocks from this spot and walk or bike past it all the time, in all seasons, and I always carry my camera. I also work or worked with most of the watershed/conservation groups in the area, so I’m familiar with species and issues and such. I’ve been hanging around Chartiers Creek since I could get myself into it, back when it was a cesspool of pollution from all the industries along it.
If you look up Carnegie and get the aerial view, you’ll see that Chartiers Creek winds through the middle of town. Find Main Street and Mansfield Boulevard, running parallel, and you’ll see they cross the creek on two bridges barely a block apart. This spot is right between those two bridges, on the western bank of the creek. You can probably get the GPS coordinates for it that way too.
If you go to http://www.bernadettestoday.com/ and choose Chartiers Creek from the menu, you’ll find about a billion photos of Chartiers Creek, most of them from Carnegie, and many from that exact area, so you can get a look at it in different seasons and the other plants that are growing there.
Glad to help you with your project! If you want to use any of my photos, most of them since 2014 have my signature in the lower right, please maintain that and/or give me credit. Good luck!
January 23, 2023 at 2:33 pm
Thank you very much for the details, Bernadette!
I enjoyed looking at your web pages. That sounds like a great spot for urban wildlife on the creek.
The nests don’t look like goldfinch nests, which are smaller and felted outside with plant fluff. The nests in your photos may be catbird or cardinal nests – they are probably the two species most often nesting in knotweed in the Northeast. Your records from the Pittsburgh area are interesting as I only have records from central and eastern PA and one from northern OH.
Thanks again! Erik
Erik Kiviat PhD PWS, Executive Director, Hudsonia Ltd. P.O. Box 5000 / 30 Campus Road, Annandale NY 12504 USA; tel. 845-758-7273; kiviat@bard.edu; http://www.hudsonia.org
Coauthor of: Urban Biodiversity: Natural History of the New Jersey Meadowlands
Biodiversity Assessment Handbook for New York City
Biodiversity Assessment Manual for the Hudson River Estuary Corridor
Hudsonia is a tax exempt, nonprofit, non-advocacy, scientific research and education institute: Please support us at http://hudsonia.org/support/
January 23, 2023 at 4:12 pm
Thanks for the definitive ID on the nest. I see, photograph and converse with catbirds in just that spot pretty regularly–they are quite the storytellers. I don’t know enough about nests to do more than guess unless I see an actual bird actually nesting in it, and those have always looked different from the catbird nests in my yard.
Your organization and books are fascinating and I’m going to spend more time on your site. We all need to canvass and assess what we have, especially in this post-industrial era where the land is recovering at the same time it’s being developed for more housing. I am just six miles outside of Pittsburgh, which is a big small town, not like other major cities, and I like it that way because the footprint is much smaller. The town where I live was “downtown” for all the outlying really small towns to the south and west of us, and we had a huge amount of industry here because this creek was and still is navigable all the way to the Ohio River. And yet within 10 miles there are still farms, though they are falling to the backhoe. But after decades of recovery on Chartiers Creek, especially right within the bounds of Carnegie Borough, in 2012 I saw a kingfisher that became a permanent resident, and saw fish digging out little gullies in the stream bed to lay eggs. My job in all this as a commercial artist and writer is to write, photograph and illustrate what others find, and as a fine artist just to present the amazing wonders that others might miss, both out there in less populated areas or right here in the center of town.
January 23, 2023 at 4:51 pm
Thank you very much for the details, Bernadette!
I enjoyed looking at your web pages. That sounds like a great spot for urban wildlife on the creek.
The nests don’t look like goldfinch nests, which are smaller and felted outside with plant fluff. The nests
in your photos may be catbird or cardinal nests – they are probably the two species most often nesting
in knotweed in the Northeast. Your records from the Pittsburgh area are interesting as I only have records from
central and eastern PA and one from northern OH.
Thanks again!
Erik Kiviat
January 23, 2023 at 4:15 pm
I like this composition, the pattern of the branches looks great.
December 20, 2013 at 6:33 am
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