I have been too busy this week to get my bird reports in, but the Valatie/Stuyvesant area had a dense murmuration of thousands of black birds with many European Starlings, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds, and a few Red-winged Blackbirds in the past few days. These birds have been feeding on cornfields and soybean fields and perching in woods along these fields.
There have been some flocks of a few hundred Canada Geese, but I doubt these have been significant on radar. Nancy Kern Austerlitz, Columbia Co., NY From: c...@cornell.edu To: daven102...@gmail.com CC: bmvando...@gmail.com; jwk...@fastmail.fm; cayugabird...@list.cornell.edu; nysbird...@list.cornell.edu Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] [nysbirds-l] Interesting Bird?? Take Off on Radar this morning Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 16:23:43 +0000 I'm guessing these are a liftoff echoes of Canada Geese from Kinderhook Lake in Niverville, Columbia County, NY. Depending upon liftoff angle and altitude, the reflectivity echo may be off slightly from actual location of liftoff. Good birding and Happy Holidays! Sincerely, Chris T-H Sent from my iPhone On Dec 25, 2015, at 10:59, David Nicosia <daven102...@gmail.com> wrote: That's a good point Ben. Plus why right at sunrise for geese?? We see this with swallows a lot which roost in marshes and take off in the morning to feed. Geese roost in the fields? I thought they fed in the fields. Interesting stuff nevertheless. On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Benjamin Van Doren <bmvando...@gmail.com> wrote: Interesting. I could well be wrong, but I wouldn't typically think of geese departing farm fields as doing so relatively uniformly on a broad circular front. Some groundtruthing might be worthwhile... Benjamin On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 10:20 AM David Nicosia <daven102...@gmail.com> wrote: thanks. I didn't think of geese. we often see swallows do this but it makes sense. On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 8:25 AM, John Kent <jwk...@fastmail.fm> wrote: That is geese you're seeing. Large numbers of them roost in farm fields there at this time of year, and I have seen the same thing on radar in December before. It's probably mostly Canadas, but sometimes there are also lots of Snow Geese there. John Kent Selkirk, NY On Dec 25, 2015, at 8:12 AM, David Nicosia <daven102...@gmail.com> wrote: All, I noticed on the Albany National Weather Service radar between 617 am and 654 am Christmas morning a circular pattern on radar like swallow morning take off patterns we see in the late summer. This pattern was seen originating from Valtie, NY... 42.41N and 73.68W (roughly). Below are 5 radar images that I grabbed which show this. https://www.flickr.com/photos/davenicosia/albums/72157662199366610 The question is...are these radar echoes even birds or maybe insects?? And, if so, what specie of bird (if they are birds)? I would say probably starlings??? They couldn't be tree swallows since they should be long gone. Anyway, I have never seen this in the winter before. Any thoughts on this please share. Merry Christmas to all!!!! David Nicosia -- NYSbirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- NYSbirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --