[nfc-l] Nocturnal Flight - Cleveland, Ohio - September 13-14, 2010

[Laura C. Gooch]

  Folks,

I've been dabbling in night flight call recording since last spring and 
just started following this list, but I had a pretty exciting night in 
Cleveland Heights (inner ring suburb on the east side of Cleveland) on 
September 13-14, 2010. Between about 22:30 and 06:45, my rooftop 
microphone detected over 2300 calls in the thrush frequency range and 
about 90 calls in the higher frequency warbler/sparrow range. I haven't 
tried to identify and count species yet, but the majority of the lower 
frequency range calls are Swainson's Thrushes, with a fair number of 
Gray-cheeked Thrushes and a still smaller number of Veery.

Unfortunately, I did not have my microphone out on September 10-11. 
Looking at the upper level wind maps, though (thanks to Bryan Guarente 
for the links), it doesn't look like the winds here favored movements on 
the night of the 10th-11th as they did in upstate New York.

My microphone setup is somewhat different from the standard Old Bird 
design, having a narrower acceptance angle, but probably the ability to 
pick up calls at a greater distance. I'm in the  process of running my 
rig side-by-side with an Old Bird design microphone to see what the 
strengths and weaknesses of each are. With just a /very/ small data set, 
it looks like my microphone tends to pick up more thrush-range calls but 
fewer high frequency calls.

Laura Gooch

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[nfc-l] ID help

[Laura C. Gooch]

Folks,

I got an odd call that I can't identify on October 2, about 1:30 AM. 
Location is Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in a suburban setting. The call was 
repeated four times over 5 or 10 minutes. My first reaction was that it 
resembles a young hawk call (Red-shouldered or Red-tailed), although it 
seems kind-of squeaky for that. A friend's first reaction was similar, 
although he also suggested young owl, which would make better sense at 
1:30 in the morning. The links below are to spectrogram images (two of 
them) on Flickr and the call itself on xeno-canto.

Thanks for any help.

Laura Gooch

http://www.xeno-canto.org/discussion.php?snd_nr=1950
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19474221@N08/6207965791/in/set-72157627809969592/lightbox/

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Re: [nfc-l] ID help

[Laura C. Gooch]

Chris,

Thanks. That seems to be it. It's neat to hear them here, since I know 
they are around, but they are all but invisible -- I've only seen them once.

Laura

On 10/3/2011 2:49 PM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes wrote:
>
> Hi Laura,
>
> This example sounds pretty good to be a series of alarm calls from a 
> Flying Squirrel. We periodically hear Flying Squirrels at night at our 
> place in Etna, NY, especially in the fall, and sometimes while walking 
> through the State Forest at night. I've had most success in getting 
> responses from them when I'm doing my imitation of a Barred Owl, 
> obviously in alarm to me.
>
> There's a link to a single Southern Flying Squirrel alarm call here: 
> http://www.flyingsquirrels.com/Audio/index.html. Although, when I've 
> heard them, they typically come in a series of calls, similar to what 
> you posted.
>
> I just found another link to a variety of calls here: 
> http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Jerboa_Sounds_music.aspx with the first 
> link most closely resembling your example. Here's a link of some kind 
> of call for Northern Flying Squirrel, though, I'm not sure which type 
> of call this is or if we can compare the Southern and Northern 
> examples here as apples to apples: 
> http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/wss=2489 
> <http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/wss=2489>
>
> So, that all being said, I'm fairly certain that your animal is a 
> Flying Squirrel, I just don't know how easily we can separate Northern 
> from Southern, acoustically.
>
> Thanks for sharing!
>
> Sincerely,
> Chris T-H
>
> --
>
> Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
>
> TARU Product Line Manager and 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
>
> *From:*bounce-38114395-9327...@list.cornell.edu 
> [mailto:bounce-38114395-9327...@list.cornell.edu] *On Behalf Of *Laura 
> C. Gooch
> *Sent:* Monday, October 03, 2011 2:17 PM
> *To:* NFC-L
> *Subject:* [nfc-l] ID help
>
> Folks,
>
> I got an odd call that I can't identify on October 2, about 1:30 AM. 
> Location is Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in a suburban setting. The call 
> was repeated four times over 5 or 10 minutes. My first reaction was 
> that it resembles a young hawk call (Red-shouldered or Red-tailed), 
> although it seems kind-of squeaky for that. A friend's first reaction 
> was similar, although he also suggested young owl, which would make 
> better sense at 1:30 in the morning. The links below are to 
> spectrogram images (two of them) on Flickr and the call itself on 
> xeno-canto.
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> Laura Gooch
>
> http://www.xeno-canto.org/discussion.php?snd_nr=1950
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/19474221@N08/6207965791/in/set-72157627809969592/lightbox/
>
> --
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Re: [nfc-l] FW: [GeneseeBirds-L] News of note: massive Blackpoll Warbler kill in West Virginia

[Laura C. Gooch]

Here's a link to a more complete account of what happened:

http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2011/10/blackpoll-warbler-kill-at-wind-farm.html

It seems that it wasn't actually the turbines that killed the birds, but 
the fact that lights at a substation attracted so many birds at this 
location suggests that the turbines will have their day.

Laura Gooch

On 10/27/2011 3:50 PM, Michael Lanzone wrote:
> This was a human error we were told, see email snippet below-
>
>
> "bird kill in Barbour/Randolph Counties at Laurel Mt. Wind facility.
> You probably already heard.
> 500 some birds.  Human error.  Person left lights on at substation.  
> Foggy night.
> Rich said a press release will be issued within the month."
>
>
> Mike
>
>
> Michael Lanzone
> mlanz...@gmail.com 
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Chris Tessaglia-Hymes 
> mailto:c...@cornell.edu>> wrote:
>
> Does anyone know anything about this Warbler kill in West
> Virginia? Could this have been prevented with a NFC detection
> system or was it simply the fact that structures are there (moving
> or not)? Was it aviation lighting-type that contributed
> (strobe/non-strobe/red/white, etc.)?
>
> Would appreciate any input (on-list is okay).
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Chris T-H
>
> --
>
> Chris Tessaglia-Hymes
>
> Listowner, NFC-L
>
> Ithaca, New York
>
> c...@cornell.edu 
>
> NFC-L – Archives
> 
>
> NFC-L – Welcome and Basics
> 
>
> NFC-L – Rules and Information
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> 
>
> *From:*geneseebirds-l-boun...@geneseo.edu
> 
> [mailto:geneseebirds-l-boun...@geneseo.edu
> ] *On Behalf Of *Laura
> Kammermeier
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:32 PM
> *To:* GENESEEBIRDS-L
> *Subject:* [GeneseeBirds-L] News of note: massive Blackpoll
> Warbler kill in West Virginia
>
>
> The abundant Blackpoll Warblers migrating o'er the lakefront this
> year made big news both here and in other regions.  Betsy Brooks
> reported "It has been a record-breaking Blackpoll Warbler season
> at BBBO ...  today we banded another 21, bringing our total this
> fall to an amazing 705.  The previous high for fall had been 383
> banded in 2008. The numbers appeared to be slowing down around Oct
> 4 but began building again on Friday Oct 7."  (listerv, Oct. 10th).
>
> Tragically, it seems a massive kill of these warbler happened at a
> wind farm in West Virginia.
>
> While I have not vetted this kill information from primary
> sources, this is copied by Kimberly Kaufman, exec. director of
> Black Swamp Bird Observatory on her Facebook wall, and was indeed
> on the PA listserv.
>
> How senseless. Birders need to be on top of the wind farm issue
> and help them get properly sited away from major migration corridors.
>
> My heart goes out the banders who may have held some of these
> warblers in their hands and wished them well on their migration.
>
> Laura Kammermeier
>
> Honeoye Falls
>
> **
>
> A recent post to the PA Birds ListServ.
> 
> ---
>
>
> Blackpoll Warblers killed in West Virginia
>
>
> Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:08:00 -0400A massive kill at AES Laurel
> Mtn wind project in West Virginia 2 weeks ago: 500 - 600 migrating
> blackpoll warblers were killed by wind turbines. This was
> confirmed by Craig Stihler of DNR in Elkins, WV (304-###-0245)
> Blackpoll warblers are endangered in PA - we have the
> southern-most breeding population. I hope we did not lose our
> nesting blackpoll warblers in this tragic incident. From the PGC:
> "Blackpoll warblers (Dendroica striata) are very rare and locally
> distributed nesting birds in Pennsylvania. Confirmed nesting has
> been confined to the Dutch Mountain wetlands in State Game Lands
> 57 of western Wyoming County. These boreal conifer wetlands are
> part of the Important Bird Area #48. There have been other reports
> of territorial blackpoll warblers elsewhere in northern
> Pennsylvania, but no nesting confirmed."
>
> This tragic incident is further proof that our mountains should
> not be developed for industrial wind energy. Laura
> JacksonEverettBedford County Killdeer [Kermit Henning ]
>
> -->
>
> http://digest.sialia.com/?rm=message;id=317262
>
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[nfc-l] ID Help - Thanks

[Laura C. Gooch]

Thanks to Benjamin Van Doren and Anne Klingensmith for IDing my call as 
(of all things) an American Robin.

Laura

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Re: [nfc-l] [nysbirds-l] Fwd: Minimal Migration or Population Decline?

[Laura C. Gooch]

I checked with Julie Shieldcastle from Black Swamp Bird Observatory 
(south shore of Lake Erie about 30 km east of Toledo). The numbers for 
their Navarre banding station were actually above average for the 
spring, contrary to my impression that they were low to moderate. Bill 
Evans pointed out that the higher numbers this year are supported by his 
listening station there: http://www.oldbird.org/Data/2013/ONWR/ONWR.htm

Bill also pointed out that my call counts in Cleveland Heights are 
higher than the detections at the listening station at Black Swamp this 
year.  His thought is that my station may get a concentration of birds 
attempting to fly around Lake Erie, and also that artificial light at my 
suburban station may be a factor.

Laura Gooch
Cleveland Heights, Ohio

On 6/5/2013 8:38 AM, Laura Gooch wrote:
> I don't have enough years of data to say anything very
> useful about night calls during migration here (east side of 
> Cleveland, Ohio). However, I do know that we had a very light spring 
> banding season. I believe that the banding season at Black Swamp Bird 
> Observatory, on the south shore of Lake Erie about 30 km east of 
> Toledo (a few km east of Magee Marsh), was also light to moderate. 
> They have over 20 years of banding data at BSBO, and I believe that 
> they do note light years in which winds seem to favor migrants staying 
> farther west as they move north. On the other hand, I know Mark 
> Shieldcastle (research director at BSBO) was concerned about mortality 
> from the repeated periods of unseasonably cold weather in the south 
> central part of the country.
>
> I'm still analyzing my data for this spring. Most of what I've counted 
> and ID'd so far is posted here:
>
> http://listeningup.wordpress.com/summary-of-night-flight-calls-detected/
>
>
> If some of you more experienced folks have a chance to take a look, 
> I'm curious how these numbers compare to what other stations detect. 
> I'm counting from 1/2 hours after sunset to 1/2 hour before sunset, 
> which will mean that I have few more hits than the 1 hour after/before 
> protocol, but this won't have much impact since I generally don't get 
> many hits in these periods. In addition, some of these nights still 
> need a second pass that will result in some adjustment of the numbers. 
> I don't expect the change to be more than 5% or so, mostly in the 
> downward direction as I eliminate a few possible hits that I 
> previously flagged for further examination. Unfortunately, I my ID 
> efforts haven't caught up to the days when significant warbler 
> migration might be expected to begin.
>
> Laura Gooch
> Cleveland Heights, Ohio
>
> --- On *Tue, 6/4/13, birde...@yahoo.com //*wrote:
>
>
> From: birde...@yahoo.com 
> Subject: Re: [nfc-l] [nysbirds-l] Fwd: Minimal Migration or
> Population Decline?
> To: "Joan E. Collins" 
> Cc: "Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes" ,
> "NYSBIRDS-L" , ""
> 
> Date: Tuesday, June 4, 2013, 6:36 PM
>
> All,
>
> My delayed, or lack there of, sightings of many
> migratory-Adirondack-breeding-species would fall in the same vein
> as what everyone else is seeing. However, watching the Doppler
> radar patterns(which I did over much of May) of spring migration
> species, show just what Chris has mentioned...there were many
> nights when birds came up along the Mississippi corridor due to
> that long lasting, and blocking weather pattern through much of
> early May(or somewhere around that time!). And also as Chris
> mentions, birds may have flown to the Great Lakes region(on
> favorable winds)and finally found some westerlies to get them to
> eastern breeding grounds. This could(?) explain why we missed so
> much in May.
> Did we see higher (easterly) migration patterns around the Great
> Lakes(Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo?)
> I hope we can get some more birder-input on this fascinating topic!
>
> Brian McAllister
> Saranac Lake
>
>
> On Jun 4, 2013, at 4:11 PM, "Joan E. Collins"
>  > wrote:
>
>> Thank you for this interesting post Chris.  This has been a
>> dominate topic of discussion among many birders in the
>> Adirondacks. Sean O’Brien and I have been talking every few days
>> wondering what has happened to many neotropical migrants this
>> year.  I mentioned the low numbers of Blackpoll Warblers and
>> Yellow-bellied Flycatchers on Whiteface Mountain in my earlier
>> post today, but numbers of most neotropical migrants appear way
>> down. Sean keeps remarking that there is no dawn chorus this
>> year.  Even my non-birder husband has been noting the lack of
>> birds this spring.  Normally, you can’t sleep past 4:30 a.m. in
>> our house at this time of year because of the remarkable dawn
>> sounds outside our bedroom window, but it feels more like late
>> summer every morning with the lack of songs.  I was aware of the
>> 

Re: FW: [nfc-l] Migration Tonight (9/23-9/24)

[Laura C. Gooch]

Last night (9/23-24) was fairly active here on the east side of 
Cleveland, too. I had about 550 sparrow/warbler frequency calls. The 
night before was even more active, with about 900 calls in the upper 
frequencies. I'm not checking thrushes at the moment, because it is too 
labor-intensive to pick them out of the traffic noise, but I did notice 
/very/ dense thrush calls in the early morning of the 23rd.

Laura Gooch
Cleveland Heights, OH
http://listeningup.wordpress.com/summary-of-night-flight-calls-detected/

On 9/24/2013 7:05 PM, Rob Fergus wrote:
> I had over 600 calls detected with the Tseep-X and Thrush-X detectors 
> last night, which means probably close to 1000 calls on the recording 
> if I go through it manually.  Most thrushes were Swainson's and a few 
> Gray-cheeked.  Lots of warbler calls to go through still.  At least 
> one Black-billed Cuckoo.  I was listening to the recording live in 
> progress, and heard gulls about midnight.  I've got way more calls to 
> go through than I can easily do tonight :-)
>
> Rob Fergus
> Hunterdon County, NJ
> http://birdchaser.blogspot.com
>
>
> 
> From: di...@semi-local.com
> Subject: [nfc-l] Migration Tonight (9/23-9/24)
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 18:36:42 -0400
> To: nf...@list.cornell.edu
>
> I recorded last night for only 30 minutes in Calvert County, Maryland, 
> from 0610 to 0640 hrs. I had waves of call notes, sometimes 1 to 2 per 
> second.
>
> I'm a total beginner at this (fascinating!) endeavor and haven't had 
> time yet to study the file given my limited knowledge base. But I 
> could ID that most were Swainson's Thrushes and seemed like quite a 
> few Gray-cheeked Thrushes sometimes in groups ... and I'm working on 
> the others...
>
> Unfortunately because of the wind direction, last night's recording 
> was polluted with distant bridge road noise. I'm recording off a boat, 
> which normally gives me excellent conditions: no noise pollution, no 
> trees, and sound reflecting off the flat water.
>
> Tomorrow night we'll move to a more remote, quieter, location and I 
> have high hopes for another push of migrants there!
>
> Diana Doyle
>
> -
>
> Last night there was a nice push of migrants southward, with the 
> majority being a good mix of warblers, plus Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, 
> Swainson's Thrushes and a number of Gray-cheeked Thrushes.
>
> The weather forecast looks good for another night of southbound migrants.
>
> If you are in the Eastern portion of the US and Canada, have a listen 
> if you can.
>
> Good birding!
>
> Sincerely,
> Chris T-H
>
>
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Re: [nfc-l] Night Flight - Etna, NY: 5/27-5/28

[Laura C. Gooch]

I'm not certain about the ceiling here. At least part of the time that 
we were out it looked like there was a thin, low ceiling, but that was 
clearing and the birds kept coming.

On 5/28/2014 12:11 PM, Meena Madhav Haribal wrote:
>
> I too think the cloud ceiling played an important role in yesterday's 
> migrants.  I could see as the cloud cover became heavier, I heard more 
> calls that sounded to be coming from the closer birds. Yesterday night 
> was one of my best NFC listening nights.
>
> Meena
>
> *From:*bounce-116019028-10061...@list.cornell.edu 
> [mailto:bounce-116019028-10061...@list.cornell.edu] *On Behalf Of 
> *Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:20 AM
> *To:* NFC-L; Laura Gooch
> *Subject:* Re: [nfc-l] Night Flight - Etna, NY: 5/27-5/28
>
> Laura,
>
> I kind of noticed the same. I'm thinking this may have been a low 
> altitude passage of migrants due to the lower cloud ceiling? We had 
> several heavy isolated rain storms pass through overnight and we woke 
> to dense upper elevation fog and moderate amounts of mist at mid-level 
> elevations this morning.
>
> Can't wait to go over my data with a fine-tooth comb, though...
>
> Take care, all!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Chris T-H
>
> On May 28, 2014, at 11:01 AM, Laura Gooch  >
>
>  wrote:
>
>
>
> We were a little late turning on the microphone last night (about 
> 22:00 EDT), but there was a quite substantial movement of thrushes and 
> warbler/sparrow frequency calls going on here on the east side of 
> Cleveland, too. I have not had a chance to review the data, but there 
> must have been a broad front of activity last night. Interestingly, 
> the radar images don't show all that much movement here.
>
> Laura Gooch
>
> Cleveland Heights, OH
>
> On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:44 AM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes 
> mailto:c...@cornell.edu>> wrote:
>
> Early this morning, I did a very cursory review of all audio data
> from the overnight recording, by hand browsing through
> spectrograms using Raven Pro. Last night, birds started vocalizing
> around 9:10pm. Once again, predominant species was Swainson's
> Thrush with second most predominant species being Gray-cheeked
> Thrush.
>
> There were significantly more warblers and other high frequency
> calls overnight last night compared to the night before.
>
> Here are the highlights/notables:
>
> 8 Black-billed Cuckoos (including one cooing sequence)
>
> 3 Yellow-billed Cuckoos
>
> 2 Alder Flycatchers
>
> 45+ Gray-cheeked thrushes
>
> 200+ Swainson's Thrushes
>
> 2 Veeries
>
> 2 High-frequency sparrow-type calls, containing modulation
>
> 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
>
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Re: [nfc-l] missing first few milliseconds of spectrograms made in Raven

[Laura C. Gooch]

Bill,

The Cornell folks could probably answer you more definitively, but I 
think this is not a bug, but rather a result the way spectrograms are 
generated. The spectrogram comes from sampling and analyzing successive 
chunks of the waveform, so until enough time has gone by to encompass 
the initial "chunk" of the waveform there's not enough information to 
generate the spectrogram. You can change the delay by adjusting the 
spectrogram parameters, and you should be able to calculate what the 
delay will be as a function of those parameters, but there will always 
be a lag.

The lag is small enough that it won't be noticeable unless you are 
looking at a very short file, like an NFC. It may be that different 
programs make different decisions about how the spectrogram lines up 
with the wave form, so that the lag his masked in some programs.

Hope that helps.

Laura


On 1/22/2015 7:40 AM, Bill Evans wrote:
> When I open a short night flight call wav file in Raven, the waveform 
> window begins at 0 sec but the accompanying spectrogram window doesn't 
> begin at zero -- it begins after a few milliseconds. See attached example.
> It’s not something that one would note unless they are working with 
> very short sound files, and perhaps wish to use such a short 
> spectrogram in a publication.
> Anyone else notice this possible bug in Raven?
> Bill Evans
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Re: [nfc-l] Article about NFCs and light

[Laura C. Gooch]

Dan and NFC-ers,

Dan -- thanks for the note. I've found your papers on NFCs very 
valuable, and I've made good use of your spectrogram table. I found it 
particularly reassuring to see that you lumped species that I've always 
had trouble distinguishing. I'd recommend the table from your earlier 
paper to anyone struggling to get a handle on flight call categorization.

One question about your handling of calls in the dark/light site study: 
How did you handle same-species calls withing a short time period? My 
apologies if that's in the methods explanation. I did look for it, but 
missed it if it's there.

Thanks for your work.

Laura

Laura Gooch
Research Associate
Cleveland Museum of Natural History

On 4/29/2016 6:28 AM, Daniel Joshua Mennill wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> It is nice to find renewed interest in the NFC-L list.
>
> Thank you, Laura, for posting this information about the article my 
> research team published in /Condor: Ornithological Applications/, 
> concerning ground-level lights and NFCs.  I thought I would provide a 
> brief explanation of our research.  My students and I conducted 
> simultaneous NFC recordings at adjacent "dark sites" (no artificial 
> lights) and "light sites" (sights with a low-level artificial light, 
> such as a porch light or a street light). We found significantly 
> higher numbers of NFCs above the light sites compared to the dark 
> sites; on average, we found three times the number of NFCs about the 
> light sites (on average, 31 NFCs per night above light sites compared 
> to 11 NFCs per night above dark sites).  We also found a greater 
> diversity of species producing NFCs about light sites, but this 
> difference was not significant (on average, 6.5 species or 
> species-groups above light sites compared to 4.5 species or 
> species-groups above dark sites).  We conducted these recordings at 16 
> pairs of sites in southern Ontario, north of Lake Erie.
>
> The take-away message from this paper: ground-level lights influence 
> the behaviour of birds passing overhead in migration, even low-level 
> lights like the lights in our backyards.  We don't know if this is 
> because birds are lowering their altitude in response to lights, or 
> changing the course of their migration to pass over the lights, or 
> being induced to call more often over lights compared to dark sites.  
> I plan to try to study these alternatives, going forward.
>
> I'd be happy to share my "author's copy" of our /Condor/ paper to 
> anyone who wants to read it; please email me off the list.  I'd also 
> like to point out that my website has a set of spectrograms of NFCs 
> (LINK 
> <http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/biology/dmennill/pubs/2014Condor371supp.pdf>)
>  
> from 40 different species or species-groups, based on recordings we've 
> made in Ontario over the last few years (it is a supplement from a 
> previous paper that we published in /Condor/, showing that the number 
> of NFCs is a good predictor of the timing and magnitude of migration 
> of birds through the Great Lakes).
>
> Happy NFC listening to all on this list!
>
> Dan
>
>
> Dan Mennill
> Associate Professor
> Chair, Biology Graduate Program
> Department of Biological Sciences
> University of Windsor
> Email: dmenn...@uwindsor.ca <mailto:dmenn...@uwindsor.ca>
> Web: www.uwindsor.ca/dmennill <http://www.uwindsor.ca/dmennill>
>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 12:48 PM, Laura C. Gooch  <mailto:lgo...@alum.mit.edu>> wrote:
>
> Folks,
>
> In the spirit of recent discussions from Geoff, John, and Chris, I
> thought list members might be interested in this from the May 2016
> issue of /The Condor/:
>
>
>   Anthropogenic light is associated with increased vocal activity
>   by nocturnally migrating birds
>
> *Matthew J. Watson ^1,
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>^a
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#n101>*
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#cor1>,
> David R. Wilson ^1,
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>^b
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#n102>, and
> Daniel J. Mennill ^1
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>*
> <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#cor1>*
>
> http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1
>
> These results certainly suggest that comparing call numbers from
> urban and rural sites is problematic. It's not clear to me what
> impact an isolated light might have.
>
> Yours,
>
> Laura Gooch
>
> P

[nfc-l] Article about NFCs and light

[Laura C. Gooch]

Folks,

In the spirit of recent discussions from Geoff, John, and Chris, I 
thought list members might be interested in this from the May 2016 issue 
of /The Condor/:


  Anthropogenic light is associated with increased vocal activity by
  nocturnally migrating birds

*Matthew J. Watson ^1, 
^a 
* 
, David R. 
Wilson ^1, 
^b 
, and Daniel 
J. Mennill ^1 
* 
*

http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1

These results certainly suggest that comparing call numbers from urban 
and rural sites is problematic. It's not clear to me what impact an 
isolated light might have.

Yours,

Laura Gooch

P.S. If you need a hand with getting access to the full article, let me 
know off of the list.



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Re: [nfc-l] Two Year Acoustic Study

[Laura C. Gooch]

John,

Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting it.

Laura


On 5/18/2016 8:41 AM, John Kearney wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I monitored night flight calls on a coastal headland for two autumn 
> seasons, 2013 and 2015, using the same methods and equipment in each 
> year. You can see a summary table of the results here: 
> http://www.johnfkearney.com/Glasgow_Head_Guyborough_County.html.
>
> There was a remarkable increase in the number of warbler night flight 
> calls in 2015 compared to 2013. While many warblers increased 2 to 
> 7-fold, Cape May Warblers were 9 times higher and Bay-breasted 
> Warblers 11 times higher. The latter two species are known to be 
> Spruce Budworm dependent species and have been shown to increase 
> substantially more than other warbler species during an outbreak. 
> There is reported to be an increasing infestation in areas well north 
> of my monitoring station. A possible cause for concern is that another 
> budworm dependent species, the Tennessee Warbler had fewer flight 
> calls in 2015.
>
> Part of the reason for this post is to suggest that there can be a 
> utility to identifying difficult flight calls, like the zeep and 
> double-up calls, to the species level. Of course, these 
> identifications are not going to be correct all of the time. There is 
> only a certain probability that they are correct. I do use 
> measurements and certain rules in guiding my identification of 
> difficult species. I only id to the species level when I judge there 
> to be a relatively high probability that it is correct, although I 
> can’t as yet give an exact probability range. For those ids that I 
> judge to have less than a high probability, I leave to the generic or 
> family level (these are also listed in the table of results in this 
> study).
>
> Any comments would be most welcome.
>
> John
>
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