For the past few nights, I've been recording from my rooftop in Etna, NY, and either listening real-time or doing a quick browse-through the following morning, using Raven Pro. If I hear (or see, as is the case when browsing after the fact) a good clear or interesting flight call, I'll grab it and save it as a selection for future reference.
Last night, I recorded from about 8:30pm until just after the start of Civil Twilight this morning (around 6:40am). While I was recording, I listened live from about 9:00pm to midnight, at which point I allowed the computer to continue recording, while I went to bed. This morning, upon reviewing the recording files (browsing), I was pleasantly surprised to find a DICKCISSEL flight note at 12:34am (only about 30 minutes after I went to bed, so I missed it, live!). It wasn't totally loud or directly overhead, but probably off to the side of my recording station somewhere, but still just loud enough to clearly ID the flight call note. This particular call note has 7 distinct segments to the call, with no inter-peak connections at the troughs (i.e., not modulated). This gives the call a distinctive "frappy" or "flatulent" and "reedy" quality and sounds like a fast: "F-r-r-r-r-r-t". I've placed a 4-second clip of the call at this link: http://www.northeastbirding.com/111004.003417_DICKCISSEL_Modified_Shorter.wa v, as well as a frame grab of just the call at this link: http://www.northeastbirding.com/111004.003417_Dickcissel_Etna_NY.jpg. Again, it's not too faint, but it's also not right on top of the microphone. I filtered the clip slightly to help eliminate some LF noise. The Dickcissel only called once. Throughout the night, there were pretty much constant Gray-cheeked and Swainson's Thrush calls, as well as ample warbler flight notes. No definitive Bicknell's Thrush notes, although some that came pretty high and close to resembling Bicknell's (I was hoping for Bicknell's with the continued weather patterns and general direction of migration (NE to SW). During the night of 2 October to 3 October, Green Herons were on the move, with several individuals being heard flying by throughout the night. If anyone is interested in nocturnal migration and identification of Night Flight Calls, there is a Night Flight Call eList that was created a couple years ago to support this growing area of interest. Information about that eList is available at http://www.NortheastBirding.com. Good night listening! Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes TARU Product Line Manager and Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
