Hi Tweets,

Gene Hunn writes:

>I've counting them going by the Ocean Shores jetty (back in the good old
>days) hundreds per minute for hours (were they making a big circle? don't
>think so).

I know of a similar instance when fershure they weren't circling 'round. It
was in San Francisco in September 1980. Got off the streetcar at the end of
the line, walked through the tunnel beneath the Great Ocean Highway and down
to the water's edge.

About 300 meters offshore, a column of Sooty Shearwaters (with the odd
Pink-footed slugging by) 80-100 birds thick was going by S-->N. A brown haze
like oil-smoke from an old freighter to the south from which they were
emerging and a similar brown haze to the north to which they were flying
resolved into two separate clouds of shearwaters. I walked south along the
beach for three hours and they were *still* flying N past me. A Golden Gate
Audubon guy saw the same flock and he estimated 1.5--2 million birds. Of
course, that was in the days before the holocaust visited against oceanic
birds in the course of industrialised fishing had truly begun.

Does anyone have more recent estimates on Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea),
thought to be the world's most abundant land-bird, and maybe the world's
most abundant, period? A single flock of a 100 million birds must be a
pretty unforgettable sight. I remember a long telephoto shot in some African
wildlife documentary of a flock estimated to be about one-twentieth that
size--a paltry 5 million--that was plenty awesome enough.

Michael Price We aren't flying...we're falling with style!
Vancouver BC Canada -Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
mprice at mindlink.net