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August 2012

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From:
Paul Hurtado <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Paul Hurtado <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:03:44 -0400
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Here's a brief update from the past 2 evenings in Columbus, but first a few
comments on Bills post.

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> ...

        My half-baked explanation for the wrong-way movement is that here
> on the north side of Columbus, birds moving south as it's getting dark
> eventually see the bright and relatively treeless city center, and U-turn
> toward the parks, etc., north of downtown for safe roosts. I wonder if
> others have noticed this on the north side of big cities.
>

Interesting explanation, Bill.  I'm only familiar with birds migrating "the
wrong way" from the spectacle of northbound fall migrants during "morning
flights"at Higbee Beach in Cape May, NJ.  For those unfamiliar with this
puzzling bit of migratory behavior, NJ Audubon has some nice information
(and links to a few publications) here:
http://www.njaudubon.org/SectionResearch/MorningFlight.aspx

To add one small correction to Bill's post, Common Nighthawks migrate both
during the day and at night. If I had to guess, I suspect the birds over
Columbus were moving well past sundown, and not heading directly towards a
roosting location.  My main reason for thinking this is that these birds
were observed higher and higher later into the evening, either gaining
altitude to move or just following insects upwards as it got dark.  Too bad
they don't vocalize during migration - that would help answer a lot of
question! ;-)


A few more observations from the past 2 evenings:

On the 20th I had a whopping 78 Common Nighthawks visible from my yard,
from 7:54-8:23pm: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11417987

Flock of 6 at 7:55 heading West/Northwest.
Flock of 3 at 7:58 heading Northwest.
Flock of 21 (with a tag-along ring-billed gull) at 8:04 heading North.
Flock of 19 at 8:11 heading North.
Flock of 29 at 8:18 heading Northwest.

I couldn't help but wonder if those last three observations were of the
same group doing some kind of big 7-minute loop over Upper Arlington - who
knows!


Yesterday evening (the 21st) I had 2 flocks while walking around the
neighborhood from 7:42-8:10:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11423789

Flock of 5 @ 7:46 going west (low; not too far above the treetops)
Flock of 7 @ 8:06 going west (low)

and two more (total of 22) visible from my yard between 8:11-8:37:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11423936

21 at 8:21 all flying north (high enough that they were hard to spot!)
1 at 8:34 flying west (high)

It'll be interesting to see how things progress in the coming weeks, and
really interesting to see what happens with these and other aerial
insectivores once the city starts spraying for mosquitoes this coming
Monday...

Good birding,
Paul

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