Sprague's pipits are one of the dawn/pre-sunrise birds at smith point
during October and into early November. Numbers vary a lot from 30-40 one
day with 40mpg steady wind with gusts and drizzle but the blue sky was up
by I-10 until I quit down to a single bird this year.
They appear to be part of the nighttime migrants that look for good
territory and move on until they find it which is often across the bay from
smith point. Most of this group seem to head northish toward Baytown or
perhaps laporte and not the shorter shot toward texas city. The group
mainly consists of both orioles, both grosbeaks, kingbirds and dickcissels.
They are low down and tree hopping until they head off over the back end of
the oyster plant and some may double back and go up the east side of the
bay. By contrast the pipits are up high and often are only heard and take a
more westerly track from Robbins Park. A few come down around the shell
mounds etc and feed on the flies with the sandpipers until routed by
accipiters.
On the big day the Sprague's pipits and monarch butterflies were down low
and many pipits were flying just over the beach and out of the wind. Good
looks from the first deck of the tower as it was too windy up higher.
But the earlier the better to get the birds going over. Have not been down
there in real dark listening other than a couple owl counts which had
almost no landbirds heard.
On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 6:57 PM, Anthony Hewetson <fattonybirds@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greetings All:
I was out in my backyard clearing some broken tree limbs from my back porch
when I heard what sounded exactly, to me, like a Sprague's Pipit - giving
the short flight calls - fly over.
I went in and confirmed that the call matched up at the Cornell song and
call site.
Question 1) Do Sprague's Pipits call during nocturnal flight?
Question 2) What else could I have heard?
Some background information: we do get a fair number of Sprague's Pipit
records in the region during fall migration.
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Hewetson, Lubbock
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