Hi everyone,

On Saturday morning Mikey Lutmerding, Ron Gutberlet, John Hubbel, and
myself stood in the parking lot at Finzal Swamp an hour before sunrise
and heard an amazing thrush flight.  In a half hour period we had over
200 Gray-cheeked Thrushes and easily 3 times as many Swainson's.  We
were able to pick out a single Bicknell's Thush from the many
Gray-cheeks.  We had all been boning up on our thrush night flight
calls.  When the Bicknell's called we all commented at the same time.
With the constant Gray-cheek flight it wasn't difficult to
differentiate between the two. We do not take this id call lightly.
Bicknell's migrate mostly on the coastal plain on their way to the
Caribbean so to have one one the Alleganey Plateau is unusual but not
unprecedented.

When Joanna Lutmerding (Mikey's wife) was doing her masters thesis at
Frostberg on night flight calls she recorded (by sonogram) numerous
Bicknell's on numerous nights  over two seasons.  Powder Mill, just
north of Finzal in Pennsylvania, has recorded (by sonogram) many
Bicknell's night calls and has banded a few.  With this information
and the quality of the call we heard I am confident in our
observation.

Equally unusual was a Barn Owl that was calling at Finzal.  The owl
called repeatedly from 1:30 till 2:30 and 4:30 till 5:00 (we slept
between 2:30 and 4:30).  The owl moved around the swamp throughout the
night calling from different locations.

Along with the hundreds of thrushes, there was also a constant flight
of warbler/sparrow species flying over.  I would venture a count of
1000+  With such a spectacular night flight I was very optimistic that
the morning birding would be awesome.  Unfortunately, that didn't
happen.  Finzal held very few birds.  The Yough held even less.

 I would like to thank Stan Arnold for posting Saturdays daylight observations.

Jim Brighton
Easton, MD