Birds were definitely on the move south through Knoxville Saturday night. After the nerve-racking sixth overtime and final escape with victory by the Vols, I decided to sit out on the deck for a bit. An unbelievable number of birds could be heard passing overhead. I stayed out from about 12:40 to 1:20 AM during which time I heard several hundred calling migrants heading southwest along the ridgeline. I did a couple of 5-min counts: from 12:51 - 12:56 AM, 35 migrants heard, from 1:00 - 1:05 AM, 68 migrants heard! It was a nearly constant stream of birds the whole time I was listening. Unfortunately, I haven't picked up either of the new CDs out there for IDing the night migration calls of songbirds so I couldn't ID anything I heard but I was able to separate out 5 or 6 easily distinguishable calls. The two most common was a warbler-like, short, sharp chip note and a thrush-like, fairly short `quer' call. Another failry common type of call was a very short trill. There were a couple of longer, clearly different variations on the `quer' call as well. If anyone out there has positive experience building one of those flower-pot microphones, I'd love to hear from you. I'm hoping to put one of those together and put it to use. Earlier Saturday, while mowing the lawn, I had my first migrating raptor of the fall. An Osprey circled overhead a few times to gain altitude then headed off southwest along the ridgeline. Yard bird #101. Dean Edwards Knoxville, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================