Last night (8:40 pm on) Marianne and I spent a while (southern Wayne
Co.) watching the moon through our spotting scope.  It is a technique
that was used at mid-century (last) to study nocturnal bird migration
(George Lowery and Robert Newman from Louisiana State University
pioneered the studies).  Weather radar supplanted the technique in
the 1970's.  Radar echos are fun, but seeing the silhouettes of
migrants passing in front of the moon is a dramatic (perhaps even
romantic or spiritual) experience.

Last night we averaged about 6 birds per minute.  Some were low
blurs, others were very high pinpoints, most were very clear and took
long enough to cross (a second or so) to see them clearly.  Rarely
can you identify even the general kind of bird is involved (except
most are passerines).  At that time we heard only a few calls
clearly.  By that hour the birds are high enough that their calls
don't carry to earth (unless the lowest birds, disturbed by lights,
etc., give calls).


This morning I was up and out at 5:50 and the early dawn sky was full
of the calls of thrushes (they seem to call more frequently and,
because they are coming down, more closely).  Most were Swainson's, a
few (if I interpret the descriptions in Sibley correctly) were Veery
and one was a Gray-cheeked.

I spent the morning in Whitewater State Park then passed by the
Dunlapsville Causeway and Treaty Line Road at Brookville Lake (Union
Co.), wrapping up by 10:50.  89 species for the morning with
highlights:

Double-crested Cormorant 110
Great Blue Heron 62
Great Egret 2
Black Vulture 5 (Dunlapsville has been the best location for them recently)
Green-winged Teal 2
Osprey 2
Bald Eagle 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Semipalmated Plover 2 (Treaty Line - for most shorebirds)
Killdeer 125
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 6
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Sanderling 1 (juv)
Semipalmated Sandpiper 2
Baird's Sandpiper 2
Pectoral Sandpiper 16
Stilt Sandpiper 4
Ring-billed Gull 350
Caspian Tern 1
Northern Flicker 14 (several obvious migrants high and moving south today)
Pileated Woodpecker 4
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
White-eyed Vireo 1 (singing)
Yellow-throated Vireo 1 (singing)
Philadelphia Vireo 1
Tree Swallow 14
No. Rough-winged Swallow 34 (after being nearly absent for a couple of weeks)
Eastern Bluebird 32
Veery 2 (nocturnal flight calls)
Gray-cheeked Thrush 2 (incl one seen at Whitewater State Park)
Swainson's Thrush 34 (estimate, about 28 based on separating
nocturnal flight calls)
Wood Thrush 1
Cedar Waxwing 145 (continue to be unusually numerous and widespread this fall)
Tennessee Warbler 7
Magnolia Warbler 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 (my first for the fall)
Bl.-throated Green Warbler 4
Blackburnian Warbler 1
Bay-breasted Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
Common Yellowthroat 7 (singing)
Scarlet Tanager 4 (all AHY males)
Field Sparrow 7 (1 singing)
Song Sparrow 1 (difficult to find at this season)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 2
Indigo Bunting 3
Bobolink 2 (flyover calls)
Brown-headed Cowbirds 11 (males doing "spring" courtship flight chase
of a female!???)

Bill Buskirk
Biology Department
Earlham College
Richmond, IN