Last night, I scrambled up on the roof and mounted my flowerpot microphone, ran the power and signal cable into the bedroom window, and started my first of the season night flight recording using Raven Pro on my Macbook Pro; by the way, I managed to do all of this while taking great care to avoid tearing the medial meniscus cartilage in my knee…which I did last spring; this pretty much nixed many spring birding opportunities after that.
As of a couple days ago, the forecast was looking excellent for Monday night: southwest winds with an East-West stationary front moving to our North, and a North-South elliptically-shaped high pressure system extending to the South. Unfortunately, this forecast apparently did not hold true; the frontal systems associated with the slowly approaching low pressure system seemed to have pinched closer together, instead of expanding and rising North. The result last night was of light East winds and scattered rain showers to the West and Southwest of us: not terribly conducive to significant nocturnal migration over my recording station. I hand browsed my audio data early this morning and, despite the relatively poor conditions, I have the following to report (in no particular order): 1 Sora candidate (10:20pm) Spotted Sandpiper (many calls throughout the night, one or more individuals) 2 Black-billed Cuckoos (10:22pm, 12:38am) 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo (1:37am) Woodcock displaying (peents and flight twittering) 3+ Ovenbirds 4+ Chestnut-sided Warblers 10+ Swainson's Thrushes 2 Gray-cheeked Thrushes 3+ Wood Thrushes 4+ Veery 1 Bicknell's Thrush candidate 15+ Common Yellowthroats (song and NFC's) 2 Canada Warblers 5+ White-throated Sparrows 8+ Bobolinks 2 Green Herons 1 Eastern Screech-Owl 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks 1-2 Song Sparrows (songs, possibly local bird) 3 Indigo Buntings 1 Savannah Sparrow 1-2 Chipping Sparrows (songs, local birds) 1 Scarlet Tanager (song at 3:50am) 1 Least Sandpiper Plus several unidentified calls, which I've not taken time to investigate. Good night listening!! Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
