Recording of night flight calls of migrating songbirds (mostly sparrows) in flight over a site between Nogales, AZ and Patagonia, AZ on the night of 22-23 Sep 2015.  The recording occurred between about 9pm-3am MST (UTC -7).

Big Migration Night - Nogales, AZ

Two homemade directional microphones atop the barn in the picture (white objects on roof) were aimed at the sky to capture calls of night migrating birds on selected nights from mid-August through September 1991-1993. Stereo audio recordings were made with a Hi-Fi VCR inside the barn (8 hours per night; 9pm-5am EDT). The recording site (pictured) was the barn at the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society Sanctuary overlooking Oneonta, NY. The hilltop is called Franklin Mountain.

The soundtrack included here, the first ~3 hour and 15 minutes (9pm-12:15am)of the first recorded night of 1992, unexpectedly includes the evening broadcast of the regional public radio station, WSKG. The station had recently built a new transmitting tower atop Franklin Mtn and the signal infiltrated the electronics of the audio recording system. This signal interference is primarily on one channel and it begins in the middle of NPR coverage of the 1992 Republican National Convention at the Astrodome in Houston, TX (~first 55 minutes). The next 2+ hours picked up WSKG's broadcast of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and then the station's sign off for the night. The final ~15 minutes of the recording contains natural sounds of the evening with no radio frequency interference. Both channels pick up the calls of night migrating birds - mostly songbirds headed to the tropics for the winter - mostly in the first hour of the recording. One distinctive such call is the soft "pink" note of the Bobolink. A nice series of these can be heard in the 30 seconds after the train whistles 1 hour and 25 minutes into the recording. Road noise from the highway (now called I-88) in the valley below drones on through the whole recording. Note: Shortly after the 9-minute mark, a small section of the audio stream was removed to eliminate loud audio distortion resulting from a prop plane flying over.

Franklin Mountain 19-20Aug92

Sounds from a directional microphone aimed at the night sky at Oxbow Park & Zollman Zoo (southeastern MN) on the night of 18-19 Sep 2022. The ~ 2 hour segment (1130pm-0134am) includes hundreds of calls of night migrating birds.

Big Migration Night - Oxbow Park & Zollman Zoo, Minnesota, USA

Back to back flocks of Tundra Swans passing over the Town of Danby NY early in the evening of 13Dec22.

Migrating Tundra Swans

Song from pack near Nogales, AZ 6Sep22. Picture shows lights from the cities of Nogales (AZ and Sonora) about ten km south of the recording site.

Nogales Coyotes

Recording of the night sky from south Texas when many northbound migrating birds were reorienting due to an approaching severe storm.  This ~26 minute segment of an all-night recording began at ~11pm April 28, 2023. The recording was made with two Old Bird 21c(v2020) microphones atop the roof of Harlingen High School South.

The microphone circuit used for this recording incorporated a ~750 Hz high pass filter to minimize wind noise, and it also cut the lows out of several thunderclaps in the last few minutes of the recording.

Big Migration Night - Harlingen, Texas, USA

Sound from the night sky and local environment at Ramiro Barrera Middle School (near Roma, TX, USA) on May 4, 2024 at ~4:10am CDT (GMT-5).

RBMS.3May24.0410

Sound from the night sky and local environment at Donna High School on May 3, 2024 at ~3:30am.

Donna High School audio sample

Audio clip from skyward-facing microphone atop Port Isabel Junior High School ~10 pm on May 1, 2024.

Port Isabel Junior High School audio sample

Sound from the night sky and local environment recorded from atop the Garden Suite at the Alamo Inn B&B on April 29, 2024, 3:38am local time.

Alamo.29Apr24.0338

Upland Sandpiper vocalizing in nocturnal migration over Port Isabel Junior High School

Upland Sandpiper - Apr 26 (9:31pm)

Lesser Nighthawk vocalizing in night flight over Port Isabel Junior High School

Lesser Nighthawk - May 12 (1:05am)

Nocturnal flight calls of Ring-billed Gulls passing over a high school in New York State

Ring-billed Gulls - April 11 (~9pm)

Timberdoodle - May 9 (12:26 am)

Sora Rail vocalization in nocturnal flight over a high school in western New York State

Sora - Apr 24 (10:41 pm)

Virginia Rail vocalizing in night flight over a high school in western New York

Virginia Rail - Apr 22 (12:23am)

Common Gallinule vocalizing in night flight over a high school in western New York

Common Gallinule - May 7 (3:48am)

Ring-billed Gulls vocalizing in night flight over a high school in western New York

Ring-billed Gulls - April 12 (9:04 pm)

Common Snipe vocalizing in night flight over an acoustic monitoring station in western New York

Common Snipe - April 24 (8:43pm)

Green-winged Teal vocalizing in night flight over an audio recording station in western New York.

Green-winged Teal - May 2 (10:25pm)

American Bittern vocalizing in night flight over an audio recording station in western New York 

American Bittern - April 26 (12:27am)

Spottedd Sandpiper vocalizing in night flight over a recording station in western New York

Spotted Sandpiper - May 13 (2:33am)

Sparrow night flight calls, Chipping Sparrow Song, Green Heron flight calls and three species of frogs

Various wildlife - May 13(~1am)

Flock of Northern Pintail in night flight over audio recorder in western New York

Northern Pintail - April 11 (9:17pm)

Common Snipe winnowing in night flight over school in western New York

Common Snipe - April 24 (10:01pm)

Virginia Rail "keeer" call in night flight over a school in western New York

Virginia Rail "keeer" - April 22

Virginia Rail "ka dick" - Apr 23 (4:35am)

Virginia Rail vocalizing in night flight over a school in western New York

Virginia Rail - April 24 (4:42am)

Black-crowned Night-Heron vocalizing in night flight over a school in western New York

Black-crowned Night-Heron - May 1 (3:02am)

Spotted Sandpiper - April 29 (12:17am)

American Bittern - May 1 (4:45am)

Wood Duck - April 28 (11:48pm)

Greater Yellowlegs - April 22 (10:14pm)

Least Bittern - April 29

Black-crowned Night-Heron - April 24

Virginia Rail - April 21

A recording from central New York State (North America)of thousands of night migrating birds on the night of September 11-12, 2020. The most common calls are from 12+ species of wood warblers, Rose-breasted Grosbeak & Swainson's Thrush -  most all headed to Caribbean Islands, southern Mexico or Central & South America for the winter. The 6+ hour recording began at 9:45pm EDT. To hear the intricacies, crank the volume. WARNING FOR HEADPHONE LISTENERS: There are a few instances of very loud bird calls (ex. flock of Green Herons passing over at 0:01:45 - one minute 45 seconds into recording. Adjust your headphone listening level on this section before proceeding).

I made this recording using an "Old Bird 21c" microphone mounted on a 2.5 meter wood tower in the middle of a hay field. It contains the densest dark terrain (no artificial light), non-coastal, avian nocturnal flight call rate I have documented in 30+ years of monitoring such calls in North America. The original audio submitted to SoundCloud was a mono wav file, 22050 sampling rate, 16 bit resolution.

The artwork is by Cheryl Chalmers (c) 2011, and depicts her kids listening to night migrating birds through a roof-mounted "flowerpot"  microphone in Trumansburg, NY.

Special thanks to Cathy & Frank Darrow for hosting the recording station in their Danby, NY hayfield, and to Herb Susmann of Nature Sound Electronics for superb S/N in the microphone electronics.

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