Great email, once again my friend. Hope all is well and keep writing.Darlene
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------ Original message------From: Bill WhanDate: Mon, Aug 31, 2015 11:34 AMTo: [log in to unmask];Subject:[Ohio-birds] Nighthawks
We are not seeing, or at least not reporting, many remarkable fallmigrants, judging by contributions to this list. To learn that 68+people have trudged the same path to see the same piping plover tells usa lot less about birds than about birders, for example. We're only atthe edge of migration, and one can hope that healthy numbers of birdsmoving south will be reported. Barring some catastrophe, far morewarblers 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 discoverrecent reports of nighthawks. There were 568 posts reporting commonnighthawks--and some lessers--in the ABA reporting area. Some reportsestimated flyover flocks of 10 thousand or more. One report, not thelargest, gave 9490 birds seen yesterday over 20 minutes from anobserver's front yard in Minnesota's Lake County.        As far as we know, migrating nighthawks often clump into foraginggroups on migration to South America. Those that move during the day mayfly high enough that they aren't seen or reported; this is the case fornearly all of the northbound birds in the spring. Most of those we seefrom the ground are the larger low-altitude early-evening flocks as theyfeed on insects along their way in autumn; nighthawks sleep by night, ofcourse. Large numbers of migrants are seen along the GreatLakes--apparently, not so much on Lake Erie, as its shore extendseast/west--where large numbers of observers in Michigan, Wisconsin, andMinnesota see birds in fall. In Ohio, bodies of water orientednorth/south, like many of our rivers and reservoirs, may invite moremodest flocks. Here in Columbus, for example, many of our big fallrecords come from the OSU campus, where there are lots ofobservers--attentive or not--and some tracts of open area with flyinginsects, along the Olentangy flight path. Oddly enough, a goodly numberof the biggest ones have occurred on September 3...        That said, we haven't been seeing them in numbers such as we've seen inrecent years, at least according to reports. I myself am not seeing theflocks of hundreds of migrants that at times induced me to climb ontothe roof of my house, or walk over to the schoolyard, to count them. Icertainly am not seeing any good numbers on this list, either. Come tothink of it, I don't see as many flying insects as I used to, and thenumber of nesting birds in the neighborhood seems way down, as I supposeit may be in other metropolitan areas.        Anyway, I hope it is just fewer urban insects. Heaven knows we havemore observers, and more ways of discovering what they're seeing.Folks who want to see gatherings of insects can find them in many nearbyplaces, but I hope the diminution of nighthawks seen here is just a lackof food rather than of birds to chase it.Bill WhanColumbus______________________________________________________________________Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDSSend questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]



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