David La Puma
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:27:31 -0700
Jacob - COOL observations! Yeah, the radar is really lighting up tonight! (here's 8:50pm: http://tinyurl.com/yas9sum). So Mike Lanzone, Andrew Farnsworth, and myself, triggered by Mike's impromptu moonwatching event last month, have decided to coordinate a nationwide moonwatching event over several nights starting on Friday. After tonight, it looks like the winds will turn southerly again as a strong low approaches from the west. On Friday night, though, the Central Flyway should experience the first NW winds which should trigger the next migration event. This system will move east over the weekend, setting up migration conditions over the Mississippi and Eastern flyways in successive nights (maybe not until Mon or Tue night for the Eastern Flyway, depending on which forecast model you check).
The full moon is on Sunday, October 4th, so moonwatching conditions should be excellent (assuming a clear sky) over the next 8 days. If you're interested in participating, please email me and I'll begin compiling a list. We're putting together a list of methods for the moonwatch (no prior experience necessary!!), and a spreadsheet for entering the data you collect. Please let me know in your response whether you have access to Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets (or another spreadsheet program). This will determine which data sheet we send you. Good Moon Watching, David ____________________________________________________ David A. La Puma, Ph.D. Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, & Natural Resources Online Teaching Portfolio: http://www.woodcreeper.com/teaching Lockwood lab: http://rci.rutgers.edu/~jlockwoo Websites: http://www.woodcreeper.com http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcreeper On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:01 PM, jacob drucker <jacobdruc...@msn.com>wrote: > Moonwatching from my aprtment (looking southeast up at moon) from 8:36 to > 9:46 produced a total of 58 UFOs (birds/bats/insects), 56 of which were all > flying southish. Many were definitely IDable as birds, and 1 bird, low > enough it was probably at around building level, and moving NW was almost > definitely an American Robin. 1 bird was flying very high with fast direct > flight, suggesting a waterbird (????). In general, flight patterns noted > (included boyant passerine ones, as well as direct ones). When birds passed > along edge of moon, this was much more difficult to tell. Some things did > look distinctly like erratically flying bats, and one thing flew like a > moth. Also of note, several small groups were noted, as a few birds passed > the moon within close proximity. Being in an apartment, no vocalizations > were heard. Is 58 birds in 1 hour a good flight? Mediocre? Poor? What number > of sightings per hour signifies a good flight? > > Cheers, > Jacob Drucker > New York City > -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --