Re: [nfc-l] Good night flight, eastern Boulder County, Colorado, July 30th

[Tom Johnson]

Ted,
Interesting comment about Eastern Kingbird; while I typically don't hear
them calling at night on migration, there have been quite a few instances at
the Cornell football stadium where I've heard EAKIs calling at night during
light-provoked circulation events in early fall.  Eastern Phoebe and
Red-eyed Vireo are other "silent night migrants" that I have heard calling
during these circulation events - presumably they don't reflect typical
nocturnal migration situations, but they sure are interesting.  And... you
get to actually see some of these birds that we like to hear "zip" and
"tseep" so much.
Cheers,
Tom

On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Ted Floyd  wrote:

>  Hi, Colby et al.
>
> > When you hear migrating Lark Sparrows in Colorado, are you
> > hearing their flight call they often give while flying over in the day
> > or is this strictly a nocturnal flight call you're hearing?  If the
> latter,
> > how would you describe it relative to other species and/or their
> > daytime flight call?  Do you know of a recording somewhere?
> > I ask this because I never heard a Lark Sparrow give their daytime
> > call (or at least the call I'm thinking of) in my nights listening in
> Utah.
>
> Right--I hear the "daytime" flight call of Lark Sparrows, at night.
> (Observations from all over Colorado, USA.)
>
> A few comments:
>
> 1. I don't hear a lot of them. As I look back over my notes (2006, 2007,
> 2008), my counts of Lark Sparrow flight calls heard at night are much lower
> than what one would expect if their flight calls were being given in
> proportion to their actual (immense) population.
>
> 2. But Lark Sparrows do, on occasion, give flight calls at night, as on the
> recent night of 29-30 July 2009. Indeed, many species that supposedly "do
> not give flight calls on nocturnal migration," in fact, do. Here in
> Colorado, I hear 1 or 2 Eastern Kingbirds migrating by night, each year, for
> example. Nice, clear signal in directional flight basically heading north to
> south. (Eastern Kingbird is, of course, an example of a species that is
> thought not to be vocal on nocturnal migration.) Somewhere along the line,
> we kinda picked up this notion that birds either give flight calls at night,
> or they don't. I think it's a lot more "plastic" than that.
>
> 3. And then, of course, there's this business of "nocturnal" flight calls
> that are routinely given during the daytime hours. But we all know about
> that...  :-)
>
> By the way, I attach a small (67K) .wav file of the Lark Sparrow flight
> call that Colby and I are talking about. (Recorded by Michael O'Brien--from
> the Evans'Brien CD.)
>
> --Ted
>
> Ted Floyd
> tfl...@aba.org
> Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
>



-- 
Thomas Brodie Johnson
Ithaca, NY
t...@cornell.edu
mobile:  717.991.5727

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Re: [nfc-l] Good night flight, eastern Boulder County, Colorado, July 30th

[Colby Neuman]

Ted and others,

I've been meaning to ask you this for a while...

When you hear migrating Lark Sparrows in Colorado, are you hearing their
flight call they often give while flying over in the day or is this strictly
a nocturnal flight call you're hearing?  If the latter, how would you
describe it relative to other species and/or their daytime flight call?  Do
you know of a recording somewhere?  I ask this because I never heard a Lark
Sparrow give their daytime call (or at least the call I'm thinking of) in my
nights listening in Utah.

Songbirds are definitely beginning to move here in eastern Washington. Last
night I heard at least 4 Chipping Sparrows and 1 probable Yellow Warbler in
about 15 minutes of listening outside of Spokane, WA.

We had a nice surface inversion tonight with calm winds at the surface
before a cool/gust (the increase in the wind actually mixed the
atmosphere causing the temperatures to warm) front producing 5-15mph
easterly winds at the surface with 20-35mph easterly winds 200-1000+ ft AGL
move through eastern WA.  I hoped the sudden increase in a non desirable
wind direction would cause an increase in nocturnal flight call activity,
but that did not appear to happen in my ~15 minutes of listening just after
the gust front passed.  Birds heard included 2 presumed Chipping Sparrows
and 1 Savannah-type Sparrow (Vesper and Grasshopper fit into this
category?).

Colby
Spokane, WA

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Ted Floyd  wrote:

> Hi, all.
>
> No zugunruhe here...  :-)
>
> It was the real deal here in eastern Boulder County earlier this
> morning, Thursday, July 30th. Between 3:30 and 4:00, I heard the
> following flight calls: 1 Yellow Warbler, 28 Chipping Sparrows, 2 Lark
> Sparrows, and 1 Lark Bunting. Of special interest was an Upland
> Sandpiper (basically accidental in the county) that called 5 times as it
> flew over.
>
> Only Yellow Warbler breeds onsite. (Onsite = Greenlee Preserve in the
> city of Lafayette.) Besides, it was a solid hour before first light, so
> these weren't birds stirring at dawn. They were up there, going places.
>
> Conditions were perfect for the Upland Sandpiper and Lark Bunting
> (although not, I wouldn't have thought, for the Chipping Sparrows coming
> out of the mountains): light NNE winds, low cloud ceiling, light rain
> earlier in the evening.
>
> ---
>
> Ted Floyd
> Editor, Birding
>
> ---
>
> Please support the American Birding Association: Click on
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>
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>
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[nfc-l] Good night flight, eastern Boulder County, Colorado, July 30th

[Ted Floyd]

Hi, all.

No zugunruhe here...  :-)

It was the real deal here in eastern Boulder County earlier this
morning, Thursday, July 30th. Between 3:30 and 4:00, I heard the
following flight calls: 1 Yellow Warbler, 28 Chipping Sparrows, 2 Lark
Sparrows, and 1 Lark Bunting. Of special interest was an Upland
Sandpiper (basically accidental in the county) that called 5 times as it
flew over.

Only Yellow Warbler breeds onsite. (Onsite = Greenlee Preserve in the
city of Lafayette.) Besides, it was a solid hour before first light, so
these weren't birds stirring at dawn. They were up there, going places.

Conditions were perfect for the Upland Sandpiper and Lark Bunting
(although not, I wouldn't have thought, for the Chipping Sparrows coming
out of the mountains): light NNE winds, low cloud ceiling, light rain
earlier in the evening.

---

Ted Floyd
Editor, Birding

---

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Check out the American Birding Association on Twitter:
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