Subject: [Tweeters] Swainson's Thrush Night Out @ Marymoor Park (Redmond,
Date: Sep 17 20:32:19 2009
From: Jim Danzenbaker - jdanzenbaker at gmail.com


Thanks for the excellent report Matt! Since moving into my house four years
ago, I've been amazed at the number of nocturnal flight calls over the
house. I knew that these calls must be heard from many other locations and
this project will hopefully track down the location of those other areas. I
hope that we can get this to the point where birders (and non-birders) will
know the location of the closest nocturnal migrant "stream" so everybody can
experience it. I only had about 50 calls overhead between 5:30-6:00 this
morning which may have been weather related. I also wondered how last
night's weather (it was raining here during the count time) affected the
thrushes' desire to take off last night. Would the listening have been
better in the morning at more northerly locations where calling morning
birds had taken off from more northerly sites where the conditions were
favorable for starting a nocturnal flight? Who knows!

Thanks again.

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

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:19 PM, <mattxyz at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi Tweeters -
> I'll submit a formal report to Jim D , but I wanted to share my experience
> this morning at Marymoor Park [Redmond, King County].
>
> As with many people, I'm always tantalized and amazed by the night flights
> [and id's] that Jim Danzenbaker reports from Battle Ground. Didn't seem like
> something a mere mortal could learn to do. But with this 'citizen science'
> event coming on a thursday morning, when I already almost always am out
> before dawn looking for owls at Marymoor, I thought it would be fun to give
> it a shot.
>
> Here's what I found:
> The official period was to be from 5:30 - 6:00 am , but I started early and
> ended late to try to get a full cycle of movement. My location was out on
> the edge of the east meadow [google maps says: 47.6578,-122.110199 are the
> coordinates]
>
> *5:00 - 5:30* - still clear out to begin with, but with clouds & fog
> moving in.
> *4 Swainson's Thrush calls heard* over the 30 minutes
> I was distracted a bit by 3 Barn Owl flybys, but otherwise was very happy
> to hear those 4 calls.
>
> *5:30 -6:00* - fog rolled in, so birding by ear was ideal.
> It started slow, then the Swainson's Thrush calls really began to roll in:
> *44 calls heard -* wow! I did not expect that --
> Also heard in the half hour were more of the normal Marymoor early birds:
> Killdeer, Bald Eagle, Green Heron, Great Blue Heron, American Robin &
> White-crowned Sparrow.
>
> *6:00 - 6:20* - Fog thinning a little, still thick though
> *63 Swainson's Thrush flight calls heard!!*
>
>
> *6:20 - 6:25:*
> At 6:20, there was an abrubt switch in the Swainson's Calls -- I don't know
> this for certain, but the switch from the flight call to the more
> traditional 'whit' call seemed to me to indicate I was starting to hear
> Swainson's Thrush who had landed for the morning and were getting settled in
> the bushes.
> Over these 5 minutes , I heard* 98 Swainson's Thrush calls*, with
> approximately 90% of them the 'whit' call rather than the earlier call.
>
> At 6:25, the crows broke through the fog to take over, so I called it an
> outing.
>
> Overall, I heard over 200 Swainson's calls, over 100 of them the flight
> call variety. Wow. I wonder how many individual birds it was?
>
> Scott Ramos & I have heard these SWTH calls for several weeks in the
> morning as we wait for Barn Owls, but we just didn't connect it with the
> possibility of us hearing migrant night flight calls -- we were a bit
> confused why we heard them out over the east meadow, not a spot we find
> Swainson's by day. But only with this prompting to participate did I connect
> the dots and figure out what we were hearing.
>
> Thanks Jim, and I'll submit the formal report soon.
>
> Matt Bartels
> Seattle, WA
>
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