Hi Ross, and MD Osprey:
I realize I'm breaking the rules by replying to an
extralimital-related post, but these photos and your comment, below,
brought back some vivid recollections that motivate me to share ...
I was in the middle of a storm-driven fallout at High Island, TX back
in the late 80s ... warblers flying by the car at eye-level and a
six-foot brush along the coast with a rainbow of some 30 birds, a mix
of species of warblers, orioles, tanagers, etc. hanging on. Quite
impressive, but nothing like these MSI photos.
HOWEVER, the most impressive fallout that I ever experienced (and
ever will) was on Attu in Spring 1998, the "trip of the century." The
El Nino conditions of that year created a "perfect storm" confluence
of two record-setting low pressure areas in the Bering Sea with Attu
right in between them. The night the worst of the storms passed, the
anemometer at the US Coast Guard station pegged at 90mph, so our
winds exceeded that. (One of our outhouses was blown over, but that's
another story!) Most of the vagrants were blown-in during the night
and the next morning the area was crawling with Asian vagrants. Some
of our high day counts during the several days of this storm were 225
Olive-backed Pipits, 190 Rustic Buntings, 180 Eyebrowed Thrushes, 110
Long-toed Stints, 17 Temminck's Stints, 14 Black-tailed Godwits, 4
Spotted Redshanks, and eight days of Wood Sandpiper counts over 100 -
with a one-day high count of 700 birds(!) Quite a record for North
America. Most birds were spread out across various locations;
however, my most vivid recollection is of standing on the rocks at
South Point one morning, looking west into the wind, towards Russia,
while watching flocks of hundreds of Bramblings arrived onshore,
dropping to rest onto the rocks and the ground around me. It was like
watching flocks of little orioles falling out of the sky. Our day
count of Bramblings that day was over 350!
Ah, nostalgia just isn't what it used to be ...
Phil
At 16:39 06/01/2011, Ross Geredien wrote:
(snip)
>The fallout is the stuff of dreams, and I can't say I've seen
>anything like it or photos of anything like it anywhere, Texas
>Coast, Monhegan Island, Dry Tortugas, you name it.
(snip)
==================================
Phil Davis Davidsonville, Maryland USA
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