Late Swainson's Thrushes still moving -- in daytime?

[Joel Geier]

Hi folks,

After being out of the country for work most of early October, I figured I'd have to wait until next May to hear or see another Swainson's Thrush.

But on Saturday (Oct 19), while out in the garden setting up our hoop house to protect fall veggies, I kept hearing calls of Swainson's Thrushes. They sounded about 50 m to 100 m away, at variable distances (I do a lot of point counts with distance estimation in the summer) but when I left what I was doing to check trees and bushes around the edge of our yard, the calls never got any closer. So I wound up convinced that they were calling in flight, overhead.

Usually we hear about Swainson's Thrushes giving "weep!" calls during nocturnal migration. These were the normal daytime calls, not the "weep!" calls, but seemingly also being given in flight. Has anyone else run into this?

Other getting-late migrants this past week included a flock of about a half dozen Violet-green Swallows on Friday (Oct 18).

I haven't seen a Turkey Vulture since returning home on the night of the 12th. A migrant Chipping Sparrow that turned up in our garden Oct 2nd and was still around when I left on the 4th, also seems to have disappeared while I was traveling.

Happy ongoing migration,

Joel

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Joel Geier

Tampico Ridge north of Corvallis