[texbirds] Austin Purple Martin Spectacle last night,Tuesday July 1
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "drbirdie@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 09:06:47 -0400 (EDT)
Hi Texbirders,
I headed over to Highland Mall last night with several family members.
The Purple Martin show was spectacular!
My brother and I both estimated 500,000 birds were present last night.
I almost didn't make the trip because we didn't finish dinner until almost 8:30
and I thought it would be too late, but we could still see scores of martins
streaming from west to east over Burnet Road, so I headed toward the mall and
we could see a huge swarm of birds over Airport Blvd. as we approached Highland
Mall Blvd.
The birds last night were settling into a ridiculously small clump of live oak
trees near the Jack-in-the-Box on Airport Blvd, and (I believe) Highland Mall
Blvd. We parked in the lot behind (NE) of the JIB and watched the birds in the
air until it was quite dark. All of us have seen the show before and all seemed
to think that it was even more impressive last night than in years past. I
don't know if that's because there are more birds, or the group of trees is
smaller or they were active until longer past dark, but it was absolutely
fantastic.
My brother, Don Stone, explained the rationale for his estimate of the number
of birds as follows - the main swarm was at least 100 meters across, and if the
column extended up at least 100 meters, that would be (approx) 100x100x100
meters, = 1 million cubic meters. If there are an average of 1 bird for every 2
cubic meters (which seemed reasonable), that would be 500,000 birds.
Whatever the number, it was a great show, and at least one of us left wearing a
bit of whitewash badge-of-honor on our sleeve.
I recommend it to anyone who has the slightest interest in birds, nature or the
outdoors.
Sincerely,
Byron Stone, Austin
Edit your Freelists account settings for TEXBIRDS at
//www.freelists.org/list/texbirds
Reposting of traffic from TEXBIRDS is prohibited without seeking permission
from the List Owner
Other related posts:
- » [texbirds] Austin Purple Martin Spectacle last night,Tuesday July 1
