[Birdtalk] Nocturnal Migrants - Ensign Peak - FINALLY!

[Colby Neuman]

Hi all,

Saturday night I went up to Ensign Peak to listen for nocturnal flight
calls.  And well I pretty much heard absolutely nothing in about 1.5 hours
of listening.  I went back disappointed and looked at the radar and saw that
there was literally almost nothing flying compared to the nights of the
previous week.  I then checked Mesowest and the winds were
southerly/southwesterly at all of the weather stations in the higher
mountains so that made me feel a little better, but I still wondered if it
was even possible to expect to hear a bird an hour on a good night.

However, my luck changed tonight!  After noticing the fairly well defined
line of thunderstorms forming over us this evening, I checked Mesowest and
noticed the winds were screaming out of the northwest/north across the west
desert, and maybe even more importantly they were out of the northwest at
the Promontory Point weather station.  So at about 7:20pm I decided that I
had to go up into the foothills above the Avenues to listen for nocturnal
migrants.

I went up to a hill that's slightly higher and just to the northeast of
Ensign Peak (as long as Ensign is the one with a monument on it?)....the
hill I went to is still below and to the south of the crest (the hills with
the radio and cell phone towers) of the foothills that are between Bountiful
and the Avenues.  I would love to go all the way to the ridgeline there and
listen, but I'm still working on gaining the courage to do that by myself in
the dark in mountain lion territory.  Anyway, the wind was screaming out of
the north/northwest along all the subridges up there.  So I decided to
hunker down on a ridgeline in the middle of an oak patch and listen.  I
stayed in this location from about 7:35pm to 8:15pm.  I heard my first bird
fly over (some warbler sp.) at 8:07pm, but it was not very clear.  However,
the wind was still quite strong and loud, and I was worried that I was
missing birds flying overhead due to the extra noise caused by the wind.  So
I moved to the leeward side of the hill (Salt Lake/Airport side) down ~50ft
and began waiting.  It was not too long until I heard my first real crisp
sounding nocturnal flight call (8:17pm) of some sparrow sp....luckily this
was the first of MANY!  I stayed in this location until about 9:15pm, and I
estimated I heard over 30 different birds fly over during this time...which
is an average of a bird less then every 2 minutes.  There were some 5-8
minute dry spells and other times I heard 3 or 4 birds fly over in a 20-30
second period.  Highlights included a possible White-faced Ibis, not sure
what else the sound I heard could have been, several definite CHIPPING
SPARROWS (they sometimes give this call during the day), a lot of probable
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS (give a high thin seep, not the usual YRWA daytime
call), and I'm also pretty confident that I heard at least 1 LINCOLN'S
SPARROW (really high thin buzzy call).  There were also many other distinct
calls, but I really am having a hard time even speculating as to what they
were...one call was reminiscent of a Black-and-white/Ovenbird/many other
eastern warblers call...which I'm thinking of the expected warblers out here
might have been from a MacGillivray's Warbler, but really that is just
throwing out the most logical guess at this point...I don't even think a
MacGillivray's Warbler's nocturnal flight call(s) has ever been recorded.
There was another that I thought reminded me of Wilson's, but it's been so
long since I had listened to the recordings that it really could have been
anything.  Given their numbers in the lowlands and foothills, I assume many
of the sparrow calls I heard were from White-crowned Sparrows, but I'm not
familiar enough with their nocturnal flight call to be sure (I will have to
spend some time listening to the Evan & O'Brian CD).  Anyway, I am really
excited/jazzed/stoked/you name it (depending on your preferred
vocabulary) to have finally witnessed a decent nocturnal flight call event
here in UTAH!!!  I spent all those spring and fall migrations back in New
York watching the northern Utah radar and just wondering how migration works
out here with the mountains.  It was one of the more exciting times I have
had birding!

Also, I have come across COMMON POORWILLS on the trail both times on the way
up to Ensign Peak.

Colby
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