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Begin forwarded message:

> From: Betsy MacMillan <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: August 26, 2016 at 8:43:47 PM EDT
> To: Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] Nighthawk numbers
> 
> After reading about nighthawk migration, we went to our back deck tonight to see if they were
> in our northeast Ohio suburban location. (Summit Couty)
>       Results in 30 minutes:
> 2 common nighthawks
> 2 northern cardinals 
> 3 American goldfinches
> 4 chimney swifts
> 740  American robins!! 
> All birds were flying northeast over my house and neighbors' yards 
> Thanks for the tip on the nighthawks!
> Betsy Mac
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Aug 26, 2016, at 1:22 PM, Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>> Like other reporters, I have only a dribble of nighthawks to report.
>> I can recall climbing onto the roof of my house on an early evening
>> in the 80s to estimate ~600 nighthawks passing maybe 20 feet overhead. A
>> couple of years later I was still able to find 300+ in the neighborhood,
>> but three-digit numbers are no more. Here in town, Lawrence Hicks
>> counted 1200 on 8/26/37, not an unusual number at the time. Kirk
>> Alexander had 800 in town on 8/27/1987, and Bruce Stehling reported 400
>> here on 9/20/1975 and 500 on 9/9/1980. These numbers obviously
>> represented just those counted in limited areas by single observers on
>> certain evenings.
>>      This species has been estimated (Cornell Lab) to have diminished by
>> ~61% since the mid-60s, killed off by pesticides and habitat
>> degradation; I wonder if this is an underestimation. The Cornell site
>> relates that one banded in Ohio was the oldest known, at nine years of
>> age. Little is known about their South American wintering grounds.
>>      Various experts blame the loss of their numbers on human controls of
>> mosquitoes and other insects; this seems unlikely, given the large part
>> of their lengthy migration undertaken in rural areas where such controls
>> are less often undertaken. Others blame new roof treatments, but of
>> course these too seem trivial over their range. I can't explain why, but
>> I am looking for fewer and fewer of these birds as time passes.
>> Bill Whan
>> 
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