Nighthawking at the Mall

Picture taking this evening at the Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Millbury

I met up with Alan tonight up at the mall in hopes for more migrating Common Nighthawks. The air would be oppressive and the skies hazy and cloudless with no flying ants we could see of so I wouldn't be holding out too much hope of good numbers. It wouldn't take long though for them to come in clusters of anywhere between 3 to 20 or so and they would come in fragments. The only thing is though is the majority of them would be heading north and many were in direct flight and not feeding so it was rather perplexing as it was out of the norm. On the plus side, many would fly directly over our heads which gave us some killer views including 3 that decided to grace us with their presence when a mother and her young daughter stopped by to ask us what we were looking at. Now normally we have to sheepishly explain to curious mall shoppers that we are searching for nighthawks so they in turn scan the skies hoping they can see one too, and then we explain they are often nothing more than mere dots in the sky and the people turn away quickly getting instantly bored and looking at us as if we were freaks, but not tonight! HA. We got a little over 200 tonight which isn't too shabby at all where we nighthawk watch from.

I was also there last week with Alan and Sharon and we got over 240 which beat our record from last year so I was very happy. Will be there again tomorrow and hope they are heading south next time!

Take care all.