See Sit Spot Challenge at Kamana.org for more about the challenge.
Time of sit: 8:50pm-9:10pm
The sun had set but there was still color in the northwest sky as I settled down on the step for today’s sit. Within the first minute of my sit, a Song Sparrow in the cedar hedge across the drive to the west gave one clear burst of song and then fell silent. To the south-southeast, an eagle called a few times over the first couple of minutes.
The entire sit was punctuated by booms that echoed off the mountains. They were were clearly quite loud at their source, but were distant enough to not sound too loud where I sat. It sounded like the explosions may have been coming from the runway, where they use bottle rockets and other loud noises to encourage birds leave area. This is commonly done in an attempt to reduce the risk of bird-plane collisions, but in my recollection it is not typical for more than a few blasts to go off at each end of the runway. Perhaps it had something to do with the Coast Guard helicopter doing approach/landing training, flying loops around the airport (though it seems like the birds wouldn’t come back quite so fast).