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Birds and Radar



Good afternoon Carolinabirders,

Yesterday afternoon was the weekly Thursday seminar here in the Zoology
Department at NCSU and it was my first opportunity to hear Dr. Sidney
Gauthreaux, Clemson University, talk about his work tracking bird migrations
with radar.  It was fascinating!  Maybe my interest with the weather in addition

to birds has something to do with that but WOW, what fun work.  In addition to
learning about the technology and interpreting the radar images, he had some
fascinating images from Panama and the Gulf coast.

In Panama, the radar images picked up long bands of migrating hawks.  Visually
they were counting thousands per hour - some day I'd love to see this
spectacle!  Heck, I'd just like to have the time to see one of the good
migration days here in NC.

The Gulf coast images were equally impressive with songbirds - what a way to
identify hot spots and fall outs.  Sid later told me he had been working one
year and actually forecast a fallout for a group of birders because he could see

them coming on the radar.  Talk about being at the right place at the right
time!

Another aspect of using radar and bird images is to understand bird strike
problem areas for military flights and some of this work has also been done.
Hopefully some of this has already been considered by the Navy for making a
decision about the outlying landing field proposed for eastern NC.  If you
haven't already done so, please sign John Argentati's on-line petition at:
http://www.mybirdlist.com/airfieldpetition.html

To date, more than 400 have signed the petition - we're hoping for 500+ so
please take a minute to add your name and ask your friends to do the same before

Monday.

I'm always watching radar images on the weather channel - now I'm going to
wonder if some of those doppler images have a bird somewhere hidden in them.
Sure hope the images for this weekend are empty except for the birds!  I know
some of you to the west of the Triangle are ready for some sun and blue skies as

I am too.

Good birding and have a great weekend.

Lena

--
Lena Gallitano
Raleigh, NC



--
Lena Gallitano
Laboratory Supervisor
Department of Zoology, Box 7617
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7617
Phone:  919-513-2530
Fax:  919-515-1801
Email:  lena_gallitano@ncsu.edu