Actually, that's a pretty keen observation, Bill, on the nighthawks in Illinois. This same system was responsible for low temps in the Great Plains yesterday and last night. Winds were already channeling out of Canada across the Plains. Additionally, there is a much greater concentration of Common Nighthawks in the West than anywhere east of the Mississippi (save for Florida). For the Illinois birds I would assume were normal migrants PLUS a greater number of birds pulled from areas like western South Dakota and Nebraska where breeding distributions of this species are higher. See the following link: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/htm96/map617/ra4200.html Again, thank Bill. A very interesting observation. -greg ----- Original Message ---- From: Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> To: Greg Miller <[log in to unmask]> Cc: [log in to unmask] Sent: Fri, September 3, 2010 9:19:13 AM Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] Interesting weather this weekend Thanks to Greg for the fearless forecast. I wonder if he can tie this coming weather to widespread sightings of over 16,000 nighthawks over Chicago yesterday: see many posts at http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/IBET.html#1283472326 Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]