Jim etal:

Any tips on when to listen and how to interpret those radar images -- which look like they are moving NE with the cloud bands.

Richard Carlson
Full-time Birder, Biker and Rotarian
Part-time Economist
Tucson, AZ, Lake Tahoe, CA, & Kirkland, WA
rccarl at pacbell.net
Tucson 520-760-4935
Tahoe 530-581-0624
Kirkland 425-828-3819
Cell 650-280-2965




________________________________
From: Jim Danzenbaker <jdanzenbaker at gmail.com>
To: tweeters tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 7:30:23 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Battle Ground Night Flight and Crows


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