8/19/20 - Davidson County
It takes a heck of a lot for me to venture into the Country-covid theme
park of downtown Nashville, but I went to see the Purple Martins coming
into roost downtown in Nashville this evening, and it was *spectacular*. It
was very nice to run into Melinda Welton and Laura Cook and her family down
there. As reported elsewhere (including on the local news), the Martins are
staging all along the river in the area of the pedestrian bridge by late
evening, descending to the trees in front of and around the Schermerhorn
Symphony center by around 8pm. I suspect the trees around the Titans
Stadium and Cumberland Park may also be full to capacity with them.
It's simply impossible to try to count these kinds of numbers, but I did
attempt it, by first isolating 100 birds on the wires in my binoculars,
then with naked eye counting in blocks of 100, then by 1000. My comfortable
estimate for eBird was 150,000 birds, but if there is a more scientific
count made, I'm fairly sure the actual number is several times higher. I
wasn't sure if I should guess 100k or a million. I would feel confident I
was seeing 50,000 birds, and then I would turn to look over another part of
the city and they were like flying ants over the skyscrapers. It was like
standing in a Nashville skyline, Purple Martin 'Snow Globe' that someone
was shaking. Truly exceptional. Best (and only) reason I can think of to go
downtown.
Graham Gerdeman
Nashville
