Maybe the robins over your station are typically too high to be heard in the 
middle of the night. Just a thought. 


Re terns, I have also only herd Caspian. I have heard them both spring in and 
fall inland, but I don't recall ever hearing them along the coast. 



Michael 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Wells" <jwe...@intlboreal.org> 
To: "Michael O'Brien" <tsw...@comcast.net> 
Cc: NFC-L@cornell.edu 
Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 4:08:38 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: RE: [nfc-l] Night flight call station results-Maine-April 1-3 




Very cool! Makes sense when you see large numbers of robins flying over in the 
early morning hours that they would be birds that have been moving at night. 
Funny though that over the years I don’t recall picking up any within the 10 
PM-2 AM window that I think of as indicating birds moving through the night as 
opposed to in the early morning hours when it is not as clear whether they just 
started migrating or are descending. 



Speaking of birds that move through the night but are not as readily detected, 
have any of you picked up terns other than Caspian Tern migrating at night? 
It’s obvious that they migrate at night based on the way they just appear one 
morning in a location but it seems like you don’t hear them. Though at least 
Caspian Terns in the fall when they have still-dependent young regularly call 
back and forth with the trailing young birds at night. 



Jeff 





From: Michael O'Brien [mailto:tsw...@comcast.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 3:59 PM 
To: Jeff Wells 
Cc: NFC-L@cornell.edu 
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Night flight call station results-Maine-April 1-3 




Jeff, 





I'm interested in your assertion that American Robin is strictly a diurnal 
migrant. Perhaps that is true in some areas, but in Cape May it certainly is 
not. We regularly see massive American Robin flights at night, in fall at 
least. These flights often continue or resume in the first few hours of the 
morning and again in the last hour or so of the day. During particularly heavy 
flights, the movements may continue longer into the day, but my estimation is 
that the bulk of the movement always takes place at night. I find their 
behavior to be much like that of Bobolink, only they seem to be less vocal. It 
would be interesting to know what others have observed and if the situation is 
different elsewhere. My guess is that the main difference, if any, is that 
robins call more frequently in certain situations and fly more quietly in 
others. 





good listening! 


Michael O'Brien 






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Wells" <jwe...@intlboreal.org> 
To: NFC-L@cornell.edu 
Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 2:42:45 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [nfc-l] Night flight call station results-Maine-April 1-3 




I started my automated recording station for the season here in Maine on 
Thursday night, April 1st. Although there were few calls each of the last three 
nights, the numbers increased a little each night from about 10 the night of 
the 1st to about 30 last night. There were a few Hermit Thrushes the first 
night, 6 the 2nd and 12 the night of the 3rd. There were a few Killdeer each 
night, a Wood Duck, and 4-10 sparrows each night with Song and White-throat 
plus a couple that may be American Tree Sparrow and a junco or two. A few other 
items of interest: 







-several nights had Herring Gull calls in the middle of the night that I assume 
are night migrating birds; 





-several nights had the squeal flight calls of American Robins around midnight. 
Although I sometimes have what I assume to be local on-the-ground robins sing 
and give ground alarm calls in the middle of the night, they don't give the 
squeal calls. The acoustics of the recorded squeal calls also seem more like 
birds overhead. I suspect that, as unlikely as it seems, that these were 
night-flying robins when by all accounts the species is only a diurnal migrant; 





-one night I had what sounded like a bit of song of a night-flying Hermit 
Thrush. I typically get some night-flying birds in May that break out in song 
or partial song while flying overhead but I had never picked that up for Hermit 
Thrush. 



I posted some of the call files on my blog at: www.borealbirds.org/blog 





Jeff Wells 





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