Greetings All:
Aside from being unusual for my yard, not extraordinarily surprising -
just a bit weird. Common Poorwill is low-density but regular at this
time of year and we are within the normal time frame for arrival of
scout Common Nighthawks. It has been an odd couple of days in my
yard, possibly due to cool temperature concentrating rural birds to
urban areas - yesterday, I had six Western Kingbirds and one
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in my yard - my yard generally tops out at
one pair of nesting Western Kingbirds and I hardly ever see a
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in my entire neighborhood.
The stretch from 4th to 34th along Quaker Avenue yesterday kicked out
over two dozen Western Kingbirds and at least one dozen Scissor-tailed
Flycatchers - very high numbers for that particular route. Most were,
as other observers have noted, unusually low in the tree columns and
less active than normal.
It will be interesting to see what happens as things warm back up to normal.
Regards; Anthony Hewetson
On Mon, Apr 24, 2023 at 6:46 PM Jeremy Clark <jclark848r@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That's incredible! Very odd.
On Mon, Apr 24, 2023, 4:26 PM Glenda Kelly <glendakelly13@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Interesting and very cool, Anthony.
Glenda
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 24, 2023, at 4:09 PM, Anthony Hewetson <fattonybirds@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greetings All:
This morning I flushed a Common Poorwill, from the bare ground beneath
a tube feeder, as I was filling the three feeding stations in my
backyard. As I almost stepped on the bird, this was a bit of a heart
attack moment for me- guess it was cold and didn't want to move.
When I got home, in the afternoon, I flushed a Common Nighthawk from a
perch atop or just under my semi-carport. It ran into the exterior
walls of my house twice but, eventually, got it together and headed
off to the southwest.
Having both of our regular nightjars in my yard in one day is
remarkable - as I go years between Common Poorwills and generally only
see Common Nighthawks as overflights.
Regards; Anthony Hewetson