>From some one who knows very little about weather, except what I see.

In comparison, I have seen clouds moving as fast as commercial
airplanes. I don't know how high any given bird can fly without taking
along some oxygen, but if a bird got into a big boomer (strong thermal)
it can take it up thousands of feet vertical. Then the bird gets into
one of those "jet streams". Couldn't it sit back and "enjoy the ride"
like the Nissan commercial. Just a thought.

************************************************************************
Jerry and Sandy Converse Owls of the night, silent in flight,
Grand Coulee, WA detect their prey, without light of day.
jbc
************************************************************************

Jack Bowling wrote:
>
> ** Reply to note from Dennis Paulson
>
> >
> > This is forwarded from Bill Smith, who recently spent some time in our
> > region and thus has been browsing tweeters from time to time. He tuned in
> > to the discussion about vagrants (perhaps with vested interest, as he saw
> > the hummingbird).
> >
> > I should add that the probably hurricane-borne Black Swift that Jack
> > Bowling cited from New England is indeed a bona fide West Indian land bird
> > on the North Atlantic coast. However, it's not a *resident* West Indian
> > land bird. This is a *migratory* species, spending only the summer in the
> > West Indies. Thus the bird displaced could easily have been migrating over
> > the ocean and does not represent evidence contrary to what I have been
> > saying and what Bill reiterates below.
>
> <snip>
>
> Bill Smith writes -
>
> > >Dispersal of survivors trying to deal with the impact of a storm or other
> > >phenomena like volcanic eruptions on food sources, after the fact, is
> > >another issue, but I'm not aware that off-island displacement has ever
> > >been proven even in that more likely scenario. There may also be some
> > >displacement of some species as a result of high winds, but that's not
> > >quite the same as saying that a hurricane sweeps a bird off its
> > >perch and deposits it alive, hundreds of miles away.
>
> Umm, excuse me, but that is exactly the argument here. It is pure semantics
> to conjure up some difference between "displacement of some species as a
> result of high winds" and "a hurricane sweep(ing) a bird off its perch and
> depositing it alive, hundreds of miles away". It is very likely that there
> is a threshold wind speed over which any land (and sea) bird would be
> nuked, that threshold lowering with the decreasing skeletal resiliency of
> the affected species. Where would a hummer fit in on this scale? Don't
> know. But they are tough little buggers, as are their close cousins swifts.
> We seem to have no problem accepting the fact that anything over open water
> is fair game to be swept along by a hurricane. It is very hard to believe
> that landbirds *never* get swept out to sea by storms, especially when
> considering the dearth of forest to take cover in on the narrow Baja
> peninsula. It is still quite easy to believe that the Xantus' in question
> was swept off the coast (either east or west depending on if it happened
> with the approach or departure of the hurricane), especially considering
> that Nora was winding down rapidly by the time it got to Baja latitudes,
> thus increasing the chance that its mortality threshold wind speed had not
> been maintained. Yes, there may be little to no historical precedent for
> landbirds getting towed along by hurricanes and surviving the trip, but
> that *does not* _a priori_ mean that it could never happen.
>
> > >
> > >Yet birds do strange things. The first LaSagra's Flycatcher in the USA
> > >was of the Cuban race, in non-coastal Alabama, not storm-related (Miles,
> > >M.L. 1967. Auk 84: 279).
>
> Strangeness is truly a human concept.
>
> - Jack
>
> Jack Bowling
> RR1-S14-C41
> Prince George, BC
> Canada
> V2N 2H8
> phone: (250) 963-7837
> fax: (250) 963-7801
> jbowling at direct.ca
>
> cc: dpaulson at ups.edu