For what it’s worth, I thought I would enter the Sandhill Crane discussion. I know I have certainly enjoyed reading the reports of the Sandhill flocks. Regardless of whether the reports are scientifically worthy of reporting, they have no doubt added to my personal enjoyment and knowledge of the birds, which is probably why I and many others are on co-birds in the first place, so I want to say thank you everyone for posting these. Just out of curiosity, I used the reports of the N. Boulder flock spotted at 6:30 and, assuming this could be the same flock spotted in Colorado Springs at 9:00, calculated their flight speed. The two locations are approximately 85 miles apart as the crow flies, or in this case as the cranes fly, spotted 2.5 hours later, gives a flight speed of 34 mph. This is definitely in the correct range (25 - 35 mph) as I have later researched, so very well could indeed be the same flock. Maybe this adds nothing of scientific value, but it is fun to ponder and adds to my knowledge. I know I will now be on the lookout for cranes tonight.
Tony Wilk Longmont, CO -----Original Message----- From: Nick Komar <[email protected]> To: cobirds <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 9:57 am Subject: [cobirds] Re: Reports of Sandhill Cranes; more, please ed Floyd wrote: "The phenomenon [of large crane flights over Front Range ities] is eminently worthy of further study, formal documentation, and, ost of all, enthusi astic sharing here on COBirds." OK, in the interest of "Discussion", I ask how do these reports provide new nowledge? According to Colorado Birds, 1992, by Andrews and Righter (p. 04), Sandhill Crane is an "irregular" migrant on the Eastern plains, "often ocally abundant in fall". An abundance chart indicates their status as uncommon to fairly common" on the Eastern Plains from mid-Septemer through ctober. A range map shows normal occurrence along the rivers and along ections of the Front Range area although not the entire eastern plains, robably indicating the region(s) where observers frequently find these irds roosting/feeding, rather than flying over. I would venture that the ack of reports from the Front Range during certain years simply reflects hat the flocks passed over a slightly different path, where fewer cities and thus observers) were located. Because of the non-random, skewed istribution of observers, these casual reports of passive observations ould not provide any useful survey data, but rather, suggest misleading opulation trends for the species. Perhaps someone could offer to receive all the observations (E-bird could erve this function) and then offer some kind of summary remark or analysis Seasonal Reports in Colorado Birds serves this function), rather than nvite myriad postings to a group of 850 people. Earlier this fall (last month actually), numerous reports of migrating pland Sandpipers over Front Range cities appeared on Cobirds. Those reports ndicated that migration stat us (very rare) provided in Colorado Birds (p. 20) was either wrong or had changed or that 2009 was an anomaly for Upland andpiper migration. I welcomed such reports in my Inbox. I'll stay silent on this topic at this point and leave further discussion to thers. Nick Komar ort Collins CO -~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ olorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ olorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google roups "Colorado Birds" group. o post to this group, send email to [email protected] o unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] or more options, visit this group at ttp://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en ~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
