OHIO-BIRDS Archives

August 2015

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From:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 31 Aug 2015 11:32:23 -0400
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We are not seeing, or at least not reporting, many remarkable fall
migrants, judging by contributions to this list. To learn that 68+
people have trudged the same path to see the same piping plover tells us
a lot less about birds than about birders, for example. We're only at
the edge of migration, and one can hope that healthy numbers of birds
moving south will be reported. Barring some catastrophe, far more
warblers pass through in spring than in fall, let's not forget.
        The ABA's Birding News web site has a feature at the top of its page--
http://birding.aba.org/search.php  --and I used it to discover
recent reports of nighthawks. There were 568 posts reporting common
nighthawks--and some lessers--in the ABA reporting area. Some reports
estimated flyover flocks of 10 thousand or more. One report, not the
largest, gave 9490 birds seen yesterday over 20 minutes from an
observer's front yard in Minnesota's Lake County.
        As far as we know, migrating nighthawks often clump into foraging
groups on migration to South America. Those that move during the day may
fly high enough that they aren't seen or reported; this is the case for
nearly all of the northbound birds in the spring. Most of those we see
from the ground are the larger low-altitude early-evening flocks as they
feed on insects along their way in autumn; nighthawks sleep by night, of
course. Large numbers of migrants are seen along the Great
Lakes--apparently, not so much on Lake Erie, as its shore extends
east/west--where large numbers of observers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota see birds in fall. In Ohio, bodies of water oriented
north/south, like many of our rivers and reservoirs, may invite more
modest flocks. Here in Columbus, for example, many of our big fall
records come from the OSU campus, where there are lots of
observers--attentive or not--and some tracts of open area with flying
insects, along the Olentangy flight path. Oddly enough, a goodly number
of the biggest ones have occurred on September 3...
        That said, we haven't been seeing them in numbers such as we've seen in
recent years, at least according to reports. I myself am not seeing the
flocks of hundreds of migrants that at times induced me to climb onto
the roof of my house, or walk over to the schoolyard, to count them. I
certainly am not seeing any good numbers on this list, either. Come to
think of it, I don't see as many flying insects as I used to, and the
number of nesting birds in the neighborhood seems way down, as I suppose
it may be in other metropolitan areas.
        Anyway, I hope it is just fewer urban insects. Heaven knows we have
more observers, and more ways of discovering what they're seeing.
Folks who want to see gatherings of insects can find them in many nearby
places, but I hope the diminution of nighthawks seen here is just a lack
of food rather than of birds to chase it.
Bill Whan
Columbus


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