This was forwarded by Van Remsen, at Louisiana State University. It's
worth sharing, with perhaps three points to be made from it. (1) Migration
of passerine birds on the west coast is nothing in comparison with the
East. (2) There are at least a few birds left in the forests of North
America. (3) You're never too old to freak out on a really good birding
day.

Although John came up with no figures, you might try thinking about the
magnitude of this bird movement from the quantification he did provide.
Recall first that about 40 birds/second = about 2400 birds/minute within
his cone of vision.

>LABIRD: here's a portion of John Arvin's message to me last night. He's
>on one of our 5 offshore platforms. Hope the other four are seeing this
>spectacle, too.
>
>By the way, for those of you who don't know John, he is one of the most
>experienced and savvy birder/naturalists in the USA, and so these words
>carry special weight for me:
>
>++++++++++ "Up nearly all night marvelling. The river of birds continued
>unabated (rangeing from 30-50 birds passing my position per second in the
>illuminated air space I could see that extends maybe 100 m. out from the
>platform from within a few feet of the water up to about 200 m. Birds
>higher than that I could not see but there seemed to be far fewer very far
>overhead. I was on a deck about 80 feet off the water. Winds remained
>light N (15 kts.) all night and birds seemed to be having no problem.. By
>05:00 the rate had fallen off to about 10-15 birds/second. On my 05:00
>round I found the well bay full of birds (at least 50 individuals) but due
>to lots of milling around it was difficult to get accurate numbers of
>identified birds. Relatively few birds were seen elsewhere on the platform
>though several Blackpoll Warblers were hopping around on the decks
>foraging under the lights well before it began to get daylight. In
>addition to the species I mentioned last night as being dominant add
>catbirds and Eastern Kingbird. The sheer numbers of Catharus thrushes was
>staggering. I could clearly identifly Veeries flying by and the calls of
>Gray-cheekeds were constant all night. Relatively few Swainson's were
>heard. It is now just daylight and the flow seems to have stopped or to
>have gained enough altitude that I can no longer see them with the unaided
>eye though there are birds flying around the platform in random directions
>that had evidently put down during the night and now are being stirred up
>by human activity. I could see many tails of sleeping birds sticking out
>from the beams of the ceilings on the 05:00 round that I could not see
>enough of to identify. I figure I'll get them in daylight if they stick
>around.
>
>This has been the ornithological spectacle of my entire life.
>Intellectually I knew that this sort of thing had to happen, at least
>occasionally, but to actually stand in one place for hour after hour and
>watch a steady flow pass just a few feet from you is like watching a major
>river. And attempting to quantify the flow is about like trying to count
>water in a river. I'm a little rocky from no sleep but I have never been
>remotely struck by any other ornithological event like I have been by
>this. I suspect that very few people on this planet have seen what I have
>seen in the last 12 hours. It is a spell- binding feeling I will carry to
>my grave."
>
>John Arvin

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html