Have you ever seen a new bird species so mesmerizing, so fascinating, so attention-catching and stood stunned, wondering how on earth you hadn’t noticed it before? I’ve had many of these moments in my first year as a new birder—the most recent happening just last week!
I was out for a summer evening walk with a friend when something that I didn’t recognize flew overhead. Another bird followed. And then another.
They were fast. Erratic. And moving quickly out of sight. A brief glimpse with my binoculars got my adrenaline pumping, because I saw what I was sure were two bright white wing patches—one near the end of each wing. I high-tailed it back down the trail, hoping to get a better look at them when they emerged from behind some trees.
Sure enough. My first common nighthawks of the summer, and my first ever.
Late August and early September brings us a lot of special birding events, common nighthawk migration included. This week’s Entryway to Birding blog takes a closer look at what you might find when you turn your eye to the summer evening sky, and shares a few resources that you should know about if you’d like to get a better sense of the season’s timings.
Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider
