Hi Jon,

Thanks for your e-mail.

Once you tune into the call note of the Swainson's Thrush, it's very easy to
detect. It's kind of a burry note and other notes are clear...ish. I'm
pretty bad at describing call notes. I can send you a wav file with the
note of a Swainson's Thrush on it. Let me know and I'll send it. That goes
for all Tweeters out there. As far as counting the thrushes, that all
starts early in the season when there's very few going over. With the first
ones, I would hear the note north of the house, then again directly over (or
close to it) and then further south. I tried to estimate the distance
between where each note was made and the time between each note. Then, on a
much busier night, take those same findings and apply it to all the sounds
going over to try to approximate numbers. It can be difficult when there's
loads of activity so all numbers, at best, have a +/- factor. All the
numbers that I've been reporting are number of birds, not number of calls.

I don't know how long the migration will go on since this is the first time
that I'll be at home most of September.

At this point, I've always responded to anybody asking about Swainson's
Thrush migration privately when I send the wav file to them. I don't feel
good in sending an attachment to a listerve.

Thanks and keep your ears skyward!

Jim Danzenbaker
Battle Ground, Clark County, WA


On 9/19/07, Jonathan Cooper <jcooper at fhcrc.org> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Jim
>
> I've been reading your postings on Tweeters with amazement. Like another
> reader who posted a question to you on Tweeters a month or so ago, I've
> been wondering how you can count and identify the migrants at night. I
> can't even imagine what sound a Swainson's thrush might make when
> migrating. Do they call continuously, and do they sing (which even I can
> identify) or have some kind of flight call? I'm really intrigued. I didn't
> see your answer to the question on Tweeters, and wonder if you can give me
> a repy here.
>
> Best regards
>
> Jon Cooper
>
> Jonathan A. Cooper
> Seattle
>
>


--
Jim Danzenbaker
Battle Ground, WA
360-723-0345
jdanzenbaker at gmail.com