This spring, The Bird Night Flight Calls group will be recording the night calls of birds on Observatory Hill at the University of Virginia. Starting on March 24th until April 20th, our group will be recording birds night calls bi-weekly. The observations we make will be posted on this blog each week during the time we are recording.

We have also recently reached out to Professor Alan Clark at Fordham University and were responded to with insightful information to start our project. He suggested we use recording devices, such as a Video Cassette Recorder, in order to document the bird’s night flight calls and also gave us a website for more information regarding NFC analysis and trends.

On our own, we have been able to research the types of birds found at Observatory Hill, thanks to the Monticello Bird Club, and other various websites that depict sound clips of the calls they make. Hopefully we will be able to discern the various species of birds, and if they are migratory or native, according to their calls on our recordings.

We are excited to get started and learn about local Charlottesville birds as well as migrating birds and their night calls!

Post by Nikki Goncalves and Emily Votroubek