Hi Erik,
If I understand you correctly, your saying you haven't heard them at
night, but are making the assumption that the calling rate is
"probably not much less frequently than other thrushes, buntings,
warblers,tanagers, orioles, and sparrows." I am just curious how you
are coming to that conclusion. At least here and our other stations
(from Erie, PA to southern Appalachians) there is a big difference in
calling rate between those species, and Robins seem to be on the
extreme low end compared with their relative abundance during
migration. I'd be curious to hear some other thoughts/experiances with
Robins.
Best,
Mike
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 13, 2010, at 1:05 PM, Erik Johnson <[email protected]>
wrote:
Along the gulf coast in the fall, I have witnessed large pre-dawn
movements of American Robins that are returning north after presumably
realizing that they are over water (the Gulf) as daylight approaches.
This return flight can last up to one hour after sunrise, although it
typically peaks just before sunrise. I have always assumed this means
they were traveling south in the dark hours of the night. I have
played around with some nocturnal recording, but have yet to get a
flight call of a robin in the spring or fall - about 30 mi north of
the Gulf in south-central Louisiana. If they do call, it's probably
not much less frequently than other thrushes, buntings, warblers,
tanagers, orioles, and sparrows, at least based on my local experience
here.
Cheers,
Erik Johnson
S Lafayette, LA
ejohn33 AT lsu.edu
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Ted Floyd <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi, all.
I ponder this question a lot. In all my experience in Colorado, I
have heard
exactly one (1) flight call from a robin that seemed to be an on-
the-go
nocturnal migrant. (For comparison, I've heard more flight calls from
nocturnal-migrant Western Grebes and Eastern Kingbirds in
Colorado.) I've
flushed a lot of robins by night, but that doesn't really count.
In Boulder County, Colorado, then, I'd say that robins are
practically
silent as nocturnal migrants, or they simply do not migrate by
night. I
frequently see (and hear) heavy, medium-altitude robin passages
that go
strong right to around sundown, but then the flights suddenly end at
nightfall.
Daytime "Vis Mig" of American Robins is striking (visual and
audible) in the
Front Range region of Colorado, comparable to the heavy daytime
flights of
Common Grackles in early spring.
Ted Floyd
[email protected]
Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
________________________________
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael
O'Brien
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 1:59 PM
To: Jeff Wells
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Night flight call station results-Maine-April
1-3
Jeff,
I'm interested in your assertion that American Robin is strictly a
diurnal
migrant. Perhaps that is true in some areas, but in Cape May it
certainly is
not. We regularly see massive American Robin flights at night, in
fall at
least. These flights often continue or resume in the first few
hours of the
morning and again in the last hour or so of the day. During
particularly
heavy flights, the movements may continue longer into the day, but my
estimation is that the bulk of the movement always takes place at
night. I
find their behavior to be much like that of Bobolink, only they
seem to be
less vocal. It would be interesting to know what others have
observed and if
the situation is different elsewhere. My guess is that the main
difference,
if any, is that robins call more frequently in certain situations
and fly
more quietly in others.
good listening!
Michael O'Brien
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Wells" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 2:42:45 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [nfc-l] Night flight call station results-Maine-April 1-3
I started my automated recording station for the season here in
Maine on
Thursday night, April 1st. Although there were few calls each of
the last
three nights, the numbers increased a little each night from about
10 the
night of the 1st to about 30 last night. There were a few Hermit
Thrushes
the first night, 6 the 2nd and 12 the night of the 3rd. There were
a few
Killdeer each night, a Wood Duck, and 4-10 sparrows each night with
Song and
White-throat plus a couple that may be American Tree Sparrow and a
junco or
two. A few other items of interest:
-several nights had Herring Gull calls in the middle of the night
that I
assume are night migrating birds;
-several nights had the squeal flight calls of American Robins around
midnight. Although I sometimes have what I assume to be local on-
the-ground
robins sing and give ground alarm calls in the middle of the night,
they
don't give the squeal calls. The acoustics of the recorded squeal
calls also
seem more like birds overhead. I suspect that, as unlikely as it
seems, that
these were night-flying robins when by all accounts the species is
only a
diurnal migrant;
-one night I had what sounded like a bit of song of a night-flying
Hermit
Thrush. I typically get some night-flying birds in May that break
out in
song or partial song while flying overhead but I had never picked
that up
for Hermit Thrush.
I posted some of the call files on my blog at: www.borealbirds.org/blog
Jeff Wells
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