Hi all, I spent a fair amount of time recording and listening on Wednesday (8-18) and Thursday (8-19) nights last week just west of Spokane, WA adjacent to the local national weather service office. To familiarize everyone with the location, it's located at ~2300 ft on a large plain that eventually tapers off to ~800 ft along the Columbia River ~100 miles to the southwest. To the north and east are a number of hills (3000-4000 ft ASL) within 25 miles and mountains rising to between 5000-7000 ft ASL within 50 miles.
Anyway, CHIPPING SPARROWS were the most common flight call heard and recorded. WILSON'S WARBLERS were probably second most common. I also had several YELLOW WARBLERS. In addition, I had a couple double banded upsweeps that remind me of NASHVILLE WARBLER's daytime call note, and I had one double banded upsweep that was sparrow-esque...assumed to be a VESPER SPARROW given the time of year. I also had several other 'seeps' that certainly could have originated from MacGillivray's and Townsend's Warbler, but who knows as I'm not aware of any recordings for these species. I also had a BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON call three times as it flew over, which is apparently fairly rare for northeastern WA. I also had a BAIRD'S SANDPIPER (called once) and a SPOTTED SANDPIPER (quite low) migrating overhead. Interestingly, ZERO Swainson's Thrushes were heard. Interestingly, in all my nights listening (a couple dozen) in Utah, I never heard a Hermit or Swainson's Thrush in either the spring or fall. I don't know what these birds do between the Cascades/Sierras and the Continental Divide given my experiences thus far as I'm certainly quite baffled at this point... Colby -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html --
