I have been conducting home-made Common Nighthawk surveys in my Belmont County yard for two consecutive years. Tonight was the best night yet with the largest flocks that I've seen. Prior to this evening the highest number of birds in any one flock was 26. Mostly I would see singles and doubles flying relatively low over the ground. The birds travel in all directions with a near majority curiously heading north. This evening, for the first time, I saw large swirling flocks at much higher altitudes than birds seen previously. There were two south bound flocks; one of 30 and the other of 40 (estimate.) I also saw two flocks that appeared to be north bound; one of 22 and one of 61. This whole nighthawks flying north thing has me quite confused. When they were singles and doubles flying low, I just thought maybe they were staging somewhere and would fly south in a few days with a large group. But tonight I saw two groups very high in the sky disappear to the north. Confusing... Counting the usual singles and doubles flying low, I ended up with 160 birds. That is nearly 40 more than I had in the complete 12 hours of surveying last year. I intend to write up the results of my home-made surveys and I will share them with the group. Stay tuned... Scott Albaugh Belmont County ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]