Re: [Maine-birds] Re: Fall Migration - Barn Swallows in Benton

Barn Swallow observation this summer of 2015

I cannot speak to the total migration.  I can say that this summer was most productive barn swallow nesting in my barn in Benton.  A few years ago the number of returning Barn Swallows for down from 16 pairs to just 5 barn swallows.  This year there were probably 10 returning pairs, but the number of barn swallows in total around the barn in early August was over 40.  There were at least two broods in most nests this year.  It were also the summer with the most baby barn swallows that did not survive.  I collected at least 8 bodies including 5 with few feathers that must have fallen or were pushed out of the nest.  There were a few nests with fledglings being feed in early August. 

Allan

 10/1/2015 2:09 PM, Lynn Havsall wrote:

Yes, I agree that both weather conditions this year and cummulative  decline in populations over the years have combined to make this  fall's migration along the coast dismal.    I have been birding for 4 decades and the decrease in numbers is  especially evident to me during spring warbler migrations. Back in  1975 there were so many birds that I didn't know which ones to look  at. It was like having ADD, birds flitting everywhere and not just in  fallout conditions, but daily during spring migration. Now days that  feeling only happens during a big fallout.    Hopefully inspiriation to us all to keep working in conservation.  Lynn Havsall  Eastbrook    On 10/1/15, Richard Harris Podolsky <richardpodolsky@gmail.com> wrote:  

I think this back and forth on fall 2015 migration is a perfect example of  how field ornithology benefits from input by us - citizen scientists.    I posed the original question here for the purpose of simply finding out if    my observation that the migration in the Rockland Bog was 1/2 of what I was    expecting was shared by other birders around the state.    The consensus seems to be that folks along the coast indeed agree that *this    fall migration was lower than expected*.  Some of you went further and said    that it was the lowest they had seen in decades.  This helped me because it    meant that the low numbers and diversity in the bog was likely *due to  fewer birds using the coastal zone* and not something endemic to the bog  itself or worse to my ability to find birds!!    I also checked in with BirdCast <http://birdcast.info> and this interesting    program indicated that the may have been a massive single night flight over    the North East on September 20.  Check this  <http://birdcast.info/content/uploads/summary_2015-09-18_2015-09-24_.png>  out:    [image: summary_2015-09-18_2015-09-24_.png]      So, whoever said that maybe the birds just didn't make a lot of stopovers  along the coast and *just bombed by us in one massive flight* may have been    spot-on!    Secondarily, I was hopping to hear from folks in the western mountains to  see if they were seeing above, below or normal levels of migration.  The  notion being that perhaps our lower numbers on the coast was offset by  higher numbers out west - to essentially try and find our missing birds on  another on-ramp to the Atlantic Flyway.  But, so far, only two folks  weighed in from the west one saying that the numbers were low and the other    that it seemed normal levels.  It would be great to hear from more folks,  especially from deeper interior Maine.    Finally - a lot of folks got very engaged by the disturbing reality *that  year over year we are losing bird biomass and diversity at the continent  level* and perhaps that explains our fewer birds this fall.  I personally  think that both are in play - regional weather patterns this fall *AND*  year over year few birds.    This circles back to the critical role that birders play as *vital  sentinels of change*.  By watching birds, by counting them, by sharing our  observations in places like Maine Birds -- makes us not just witnesses to  the decline of birds but agents of the changes that need to occur so we can    witness bird populations rebuilding and surpassing past glory days.    On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 6:01:47 PM UTC-4, BAB wrote:  

  Total bust in the Midcoast.    BAB    --  Bruce Bartrug  Nobleboro, Maine, USA  bbar...@gmail.com <javascript:>  www.brucebartrug.com    •The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but  because of those who look on and do nothing.  - Albert Einstein  •In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the  silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King    

  --  Maine birds mailing list  maine-birds@googlegroups.com  http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds  https://sites.google.com/site/birding207  ---  You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups  "Maine birds" group.  To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an  email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.  For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.