Thanks Bill for wonderful listening and watching time! I felt we are so lucky
to be in Ithaca and have such extraordinary people among our midst and great
learning experience.
I managed to listen a few minutes with Bill's set up. It was great. Now I could
say I heard different kinds of calls, meaning many sounded different which in
the past I had difficulty in saying if it was up slurred zip or down slurred
call. But now I can distinguish them. Only I need to practice a bit more
listening to identify at least a few more species. I feel confident to call
that I heard Gray-cheecked thrushes, Swainson's thrushes and a couple of calls
sounded very similar to Dickcissel calls, but I am 100% sure that I can
confidently call that those were the birds unless I also saw the spectrogram
after recording them at the same time. I did record some, but they were still
too high for my microphone. If I get chance I will look at them in next couple
of days.
Thermal camera was another great experience. Bill had set up a thermal camera
with a wide screen. As the migrants passed overhead they looked like falling
stars (or meteors) as they streaked across the screen. Some went almost south,
some flew in circles, others came in groups of four or five birds at a time on
the screen. We could even watch their wing beats! At one point two of them
almost collided, but one decided that it may want to change its direction last
moment. It is so amazing that these birds almost some thousand feet high could
be detected so well with this camera. Every time a bird showed up on the
screen, we all went "wow","oohs" and all kinds of expressions. Sometimes we
watched some very fast moving creatures that might have been moths, they were
like Haley's comet at its brightest! Bill also thought some of them were
migrating bats!
It was wonderful two hours, which was enjoyed by 12 of us! If Bill posts
similar event again sometimes, make sure you go, I am going to miss rest of the
night migration this year :-(
Thanks again Bill.
Happy Birding!
Meena Haribal
Ithaca NY 14850
http://haribal.org/
http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/
From: bounce-6322355-3493...@list.cornell.edu
[bounce-6322355-3493...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Bill Evans
[wrev...@clarityconnect.com]
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 11:47 PM
To: cayugabirds
Subject: [cayugabirds-l] Night on the Mount
Great night listening up on Mount Pleasant tonight. Surprising large flight.
Most birds were high and the calls were faint to the ear but listening via the
micorphone was amazing. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Swainson's Thrush I think
predonminated for us with many zeeps and tsips of warblers. We also had a
thermal imager and after it cleared it became extraordinary seeing the
magnitude of the flow that was actually moving over us. The wind had turned
light southerly by 11PM and I would expect there will be a nice selection of
new migrants about Ithaca over the weekend.
Good birding to all,
Bill E
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