Hi Tweeters and Dennis,

I'm just reading this thread with interest. To answer the question from
Dennis, nope, didn't notice any appreciable increase in any species or
family of birds down here in Clark County yesterday. However, three other
Clark County birders and I were birding in Skamania County all day! This
morning, I visited the Vancouver Lowlands and witnessed about 15,000 geese
(Snow and Cackling) feeding in the corn fields. However, these are
(probably) birds that winter here so they wouldn't have triggered a
migration alert since I think most only commute between Suave Island,
Oregon and the Vancouver lowlands - about 3 miles as the goose flies.
There were also about 600 Sandhill Cranes but they are diurnal fliers. The
number of cranes may have increased in the last several days - but maybe
not since I'm not there every day to count them. Also, as Dennis stated,
most (if not all) goose and crane commute time is during daylight hours.
True goose migration is nocturnal. I don't think there was any nocturnal
goose migration going on since there were no reports on OBOL of goose
flocks heard overhead at night. Good numbers of swallows started arriving
several weeks ago but its impossible to know what the daily turnover is
with Tree and Violet-green Swallows.

Seems like there was an uptick in sparrows this morning - Savannah Sparrows
have arrived and blackbird flocks were more numerous. However, blackbirds
have nocturnal roosts even during migration - I think.

Keep your eyes and ears skyward and on those migration computer screens!

Jim
Battle Ground, WA



On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 12:28 PM Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson at comcast.net>
wrote:


> Hi Andy and tweeters,

>

> Very interesting to read Cliff Mass's blog. But I expressed puzzlement a

> while back when a spectacular radar signal was shown in the Florida Keys in

> late February that people attributed to bird migration. When I lived in

> Miami for 15 years, the only incoming migrants in late February were Purple

> Martins and Swallow-tailed Kites, both of which are diurnal migrants and in

> any case wouldn't give a radar signal like that.

>

> I'll ask the same question here. The only migrants that normally come into

> this area in early March are swallows and a few Rufous Hummingbirds, which

> are diurnal migrants. I would expect no movements other than that. Thus I'm

> still not entirely convinced, unless someone can point out something I have

> missed. Possibly waterfowl? But of course they also do a lot of their

> migration in the daytime and would not start at dusk and stop at dawn.

>

> Jim Danzenbaker, you're looking at the sky. Any massive arrivals in your

> area yesterday?

>

> And what could it be if not birds?

>

> Dennis Paulson

> Seattle

>

>

> On Mar 6, 2020, at 12:02 PM, tweeters-request at mailman11.u.washington.edu

> wrote:

>

> Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2020 08:13:19 -0800

> From: "Andy Stepniewski" <steppie at nwinfo.net>

> To: "TWEETERS" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>

> Cc: birdyak <birdyak at groups.io>

> Subject: [Tweeters] Bird Migration on Radar

> Message-ID: <8F3E5F20777C418C9048D698D2F3CD1E at OwnerPC>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

>

> Tweeters,

>

> Cliff Mass in his 6 March 2020 weather blog documents substantial numbers

> of birds migrating north from Portland OR on Wednesday night (4 March).

> Further, he explains the weather pattern that night was conducive for

> migration, giving the ?birdies? as he calls them, a tailwind.

>

> See ?Weather Radar Shows Spring Bird Migration:?

> https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/03/weather-radar-shows-spring-bird.html

>

> Pretty cool stuff!

>

> Andy Stepniewski

> Yakima WA

> steppie at nwinfo.net

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>



--
Jim Danzenbaker
Battle Ground, WA
360-702-9395
jdanzenbaker at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20200306/d70ff237/attachment.html>