Hi Tweeters,

I was glad to hear a flood of nocturnal migrants flying over my house in
Battle Ground, Clark County this morning. I estimated about 5 birds per
minute at 4:45am which built to about 15 birds per minute from 5:10am until
about 5:45am and then it dropped off completely after 6am. Interestingly,
this coincided with the National Weather Service Radar from Portland which
showed lots of blue (presumed migrants) which dropped off at around 6:06am.
The site for the radar imagery is
http://radar.weather.gov/radar_lite.php?rid=rtx&product=NCR&loop=yes. I
estimated the following numbers:

Swainson's Thrush 400
Yellow Warbler 1
Orange-crowned Warbler (I think) 1

This flight was not unpredictable since the winds turned northwest yesterday
evening for the first time in several days and there was a fairly low cloud
deck. However, this is the earliest that I've had a big flight. It usually
starts around August 25th.

On a completely different note, the local American Crow roost which usually
holds about 45 crows during 10 months of the year and swelled to a previous
high of 225 birds at this time of year was rocking this morning. I counted
a total of *800* leaving the roost today! Unfortunately, every one of them
had something to say to the other 799 crows so it was pretty noisy.
Keep your eyes and ears skyward.

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