Wow! 1400 moon-watching participants in 1952! Yeah, we've got a ways to go to match that number. The NFC-L list is now at 230 actively subscribed email addresses, and climbing. NFC-L has been a wonderful outlet for great night flight call discussions and idea sharing; and this is only about 5 months into the life of the list!
Keep it up everyone! Good night listening and moon-watching! Sincerely, Chris T-H David La Puma wrote: > Since we're on the topic of moonwatching, I thought I'd send a link to > the Lowery and Newman paper that Andrew mentioned a few weeks ago. > Here's a direct link to the paper: > http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v083n04/p0547-p0586.pdf > > and here you can search the ornithological literature for more papers > that might be of interest: > http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/search.php > > You could search for George Lowery (in the Author box) and Migration > (in the keyword box) and find the above paper, plus a few others. > > Note that nearly 1400 bird students and astronomers participated in > the study by moon-watching over four nights in October of 1952!! Hey > Chris, what's the NFC list membership up to? We may need to do a > little recruiting- but I bet we could round up enough folks to make a > go of it! > > Good Birding and Reading > > 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 <http://rci.rutgers.edu/%7Ejlockwoo> > > Websites: > http://www.woodcreeper.com > http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com > > Photos: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcreeper > > > > > > > On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Andrew Farnsworth > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > FYI - I think there was a 1950 paper too, though I cannot > remember. . .When everyone is ready, it is high time that we > replicate Lowery and Newman (1966). With today's technology for > synthesizing information, we could do it in a much more timely and > large scale manner, AND we could combine it with FC and radar data > in a way not possible in the 60s. . . > > Best, > Andrew > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 07:20, Ted Floyd <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Hi, all. > > I was recently contacted by somebody who's preparing an > obituary for > William A. Rense, a leading solar physicist of the 20th > century. Here's > one of his publications: > > Rense, W.A. 1946. Astronomy and ornithology. Popular Astronomy > 54(2):55-73. > > The article presents all the calculations necessary for > "moonwatching," > that is, for determining the number of birds on nocturnal > migration > within a given volume of sky. And, interestingly, this article > precedes > by several month's George Lowery's famous 1946 paper on the > same topic > (Auk 63:175-211). Lowery and Rense were colleagues, actually, > so this > isn't a disputed-priority thing. But it's interesting how we > remember > the famous Lowery paper, not the original Rense article. (Even > though > Rense's appeared in a relatively high-profile venue. Auk... > Popular > Astronomy... Please.) In a sense, this is also a tribute to > Lowery's > commendable interdisciplinary outlook on science and nature. > > What's also cool about the Rense article is that it reminds us > that all > of this had basically been worked out 40+ years earlier, during a > brief--and virtually completely forgotten--"golden age" of > research on > nocturnal migration. Moonwatching techniques are well described in > papers published in 1902 (Bull. Wisc. Nat. Hist. Soc.), 1906 > (Popular > Astronomy), and again in 1906 (Auk). > > (During that brief period of serious professional interest in > the topic, > there is an intriguing paper--by one Henry H. Kopman--on, > among other > things, the flight calls of wood-warblers. Farnsworth in a > previous > life...) > > Anyhow, I thought some folks would be interested. I'll let > y'all know > when the Rense obit. is published. > > Best, > Ted > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > > Ted Floyd > Editor, Birding > > ------------------------------- > > Please support the American Birding Association: Click on > http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 to search the > internet. > > Check out the American Birding Association on FaceBook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22934255714 > > Check out the American Birding Association on Twitter: > http://twitter.com/abaoutreach > > Please visit the website of the American Birding Association: > http://www.aba.org > > -- > NFC-L List Info: > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES > -- > > > -- Chris Tessaglia-Hymes Listowner, NFC-L Ithaca, New York [email protected] http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES -- 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 --
