Timiskaming Birds Forum

Ann spotted a couple of nighthawks soaring high over Swastika this evening - looks like they may be starting the southward migration along with the swallows.

Another dozen or so nighthawks feeding over Swastika this evening.

As I came down Bryan's Rd. toward Englehart at about 19:30 this evening, I saw about 40-50 Ring-billed Gulls feeding on some kind of flying insect, and noticed, higher up, about 5 Nighthawks.  About 15 minutes later while unloading the van, I looked up and found that the feeding frenzy had spread westward over Englehart... and there were at least 30 Nighthawks joining in.   Good to have them back!

Hi Mark,

I noticed the same yesterday evening.  We could see some kind of smoke in the sky, we found that the smoke was big clouds of flying insects.  Over Ville-Marie there was 15-20 nighthawk + maybe a hundred gulls.  Over Lorrainville, around 10 nighthawk and probably close to a thousand of swallows, mainly barn and tree.  It was a great air show!  Waxwings were feeding too in good numbers.

During the afternoon, a big bat was feeding above my house and neighbors.  It looked bigger than a robin.  I have bad pictures to analyze.

More nighthawks - at least 50 over Swastika this evening. The gulls are feeding at about 30-40m and the nighthawks are at about 100m. Went down to Otto Lake to see if there were any there - nada. We often see the gulls and waxwings feeding high above the fast water in "downtown" Swastika - I guess there are more bug hatches there.

Just to close the nighthawk file for this year - saw more nighthawks this year than ever. Saw four flocks of 20-50 birds over Swastika over a 10 day period in mid-August. The usual is a couple of singles or pairs in the spring and maybe one good flock in late August. Haven't seen any in breeding season for many years.