A new milestone in night birding (for me)

 

I made my way to Point Pelee (again...) on Sep 10. This time for a two part birding attempt. First up was a morning flight watch: https://ebird.org/checklist/S391912505

In general, it was pretty slow. A huge highlight was an Eastern Whip-poor-will foraging on the wing (!), extremely early in the morning. The flight itself was uninspired on dead air, but there was enough moving to pass the time (~300 warblers, ~75 SWTH, etc). 

I passed the remainder of my time looking at gulls & seeing what was happening at Zion Road. The main highlight here was bugs (Red Saddlebags, Carolina Saddlebags, Horace's Duskywing etc). But the real action kicked off in the night! 

I spent 2 hours during a fairly heavy movement, doing my very best to identify nocturnally migrating songbirds. It actually worked! https://ebird.org/checklist/S392109483

Red-eyed Vireo 

Savannah Sparrow 

Bay-breasted Warbler

Mourning Warbler! 

I suspect it's not the "type" of birding that would appeal to the masses, but as someone who enjoys bird study and trying to understand bird movements, it's absolutely spectacular. 

Two things have struck me so far in particular: 

1. Is how much they are just sort of "fluttering" along. I had always guessed that these birds must have an ability to adopt a "migratory/power" flight mode when heading to South America. Go up high and just motor - you know? In reality, they seem like they're having a good time - just slowly bouncing along with their friends as they head to their winter home. 
   
   
2. Is how random their directions are. On a different night recently, I had several songbirds flying due north over my place in London. Two nights ago (again in London), the most common direction for songbirds was due east !? ... While some were going due west. Only a handful went generally south. 

Once it started to get light, I went back for another morning at PPNP. I'll save that for another post!