Night Flight Calls

Interesting night on 9/18 for the night flight calls people back east (below from NFC listserv):

“I’ve been listening live in Etna, NY tonight since 10:30pm. This has been an epic migration night here and one of the more constantly vocal in recent memory. Literally thousands and thousands of calls. Nearly constant calls of warblers, thrushes, (and tanagers?), grosbeaks, occasional sparrows, all stepping upon one another. First regular groups of Gray-cheeked Thrushes late tonight. One Black-billed Cuckoo. Only just now was there a notable gap of some 10-20 seconds without a call, as a group of coyotes started yipping and whooping.

Most impressive night to be listening prior to this first calm. It will be interesting to try to run these data through Vesper (I am recording to file sequence using Raven Pro; plus recording the full night with my Swift recorder and Flowrabola microphone.)

Good night-listening!

I was also out listening in Ithaca continuously from about 10:30 to 12:30 tonight, and I agree it was a fantastic night – still going on, but I’m not. It is true that there calls nearly every second for several hours. I just listen and count in real time, assigning the birds I think I know, and putting the rest as warbler sp. or passerine sp. In this period, I counted > 1,000 calls of 15 species, the vast majority SWTH and without differentiating any warblers other than Common Yellowthroat. I’m sure if I was amplifying or recording, I would have thousands more calls, as Chris did.

My highlights were a flock of Caspian Terns calling together, an American Bittern, good numbers of Gray-cheeked and several early Hermit Thrush, and a totally unexpected BARN OWL that called 4 times as it headed north over my neighborhood – I got a pretty good recording on one call on my phone, which I’ll upload eventually.”

https://nocturnalflightcalls.com/index.html

Fun stuff!