ROOST REPORT July 14, 2009

This blog posting is a cut&paste email message sent by a CCPMS member. I have entered the message in it's entirety:

START
"I went over to the roost tonight and observed:

Arrived at 8:10, sun still up a little,
few clouds/mostly clear, very few martins,
wind 5-10 from NE, fishermen out number
bird watchers.

Sunset at 8:20, martins start arriving.

At 8:30 there are martins in good numbers,
it's disappointing to see that the speed
limit is observed by only half the vehicles
crossing the bridge.

The sky is full of martins at 8:35,
one boat is observing.

At 8:40 the martins begin the process of
roosting, flying under the bridge
and this continues as darkness closes in.

At 8:50 one of the fishermen gets on his
soapbox to tell everyone (all of three of
us...myself and two more fishermen) that
the martins should be roosting in trees,
the bridge should be wired up so they could
not roost here and then be blasted with
shotguns to get them to leave. He has some
other opinions about birds and beach access
then he then cranks up his loud pickup and
speeds across the bridge. I apologized to
the other two fishermen (they had been using
my binoculars and were amazed at the show)
letting them know that fellow was not a
good representative of local opinion
on the martins.

At 9:00 I drove back to Roanoke Island and
counted 3 dead martins on the road.