It has been interesting to read what people have been hearing out west. My
site is my house surrounded by woods on a low ridge in southeastern PA,
where I sit and listen on my deck from about 5:00 a.m. till daylight on most
fall mornings, and have for years. (I don't record; for various
Sitting on my deck in eastern Berks Co. from 5:00-6:10 a.m. 9/3/09, I heard
the heaviest flight so far this fall, about 700 calls, mostly in the latter
half of the listening period. We're four days out from Sunday's autumnal
cold front and winds were almost dead calm, later northeasterly, and a
Wind had shifted north by 5:00 a.m. this morning at my house in Berks Co.,
PA. No calls till 6:00-6:10, when a slug of birds descending through clouds
gave about 300 calls, mostly of Swainson's Thrush and Wood Thrush, with a
sprinkling of Veery and Gray-cheeked and Scarlet Tanager. Two hours
There were 45 minutes of nocturnal flight calls on nw winds from 5:30-6:15
a.m., averaging about 1/sec. at the beginning and about 3/sec. at the end.
Most calls were of Swainson's and Wood Thrushes, with many fewer calls of
Veery and Gray-cheeked. There was a good candidate for Bicknell's
From 5:30-6:20 a.m. 9/20 in Berks Co. in se PA, I heard about 900 nocturnal
flight calls, the vast majority in the last 20 minutes. Most calls were of
Swainson's Thrush, with calls of Wood Thrush a distant second, and single
digit numbers of Veery, Gray-cheeked Thrush and Rose-breasted Grosbeak
I wasn't expecting to hear many calls this morning, 9/23, with a very light,
warm wind slowly pushing tattered cloud cover out of the SW, counter to the
direction of migration. It was warm enough for katydids and crickets to be
loud enough to compete with distant bird calls. However, from
Snow Geese were the most audible migrants locally 3/15-17. Each March, about
10% of the ~one million Greater Snow Geese stage in about 5 counties in se
PA. There was a mass exodus since the end of the monster storm Monday, 3/15.
For example, the estimated number at Middle Creek WMA in Lancaster
Ted Floyd recently wrote eloquently about the nocturnal call of Chipping
Sparrow evoking seasonal change for him. The nocturnal call I associate most
with fall seasonal change here in PA is that of Veery, and yesterday's cold
front got them moving. It was cool enough by 4:30 a.m. to chill out
The dominant thrush flight call here in SE PA is still Veery. I have yet to
hear a Swainson's. This morning at South Lookout at Hawk Mt., I heard about
110 flight calls from 5:30-5:50 a.m. Veery calls were in the majority, but
there were also quite a few Scarlet Tanager calls (see non-raptor
At about 5:00 a.m. Aug. 5, I heard about 20 flight calls of Veery as birds
descended into the woods around my house in southeastern PA. The birds
switch to using more familiar diurnal calls shortly after they land in the
woods. Based on those calls, about 5 birds were present. Has anyone with
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