Common Nighthawk, female has buffy throat, no white tail band and smaller white primary band.
Common Nighthawk, male, has white throat, large white primary bars, white subterminal tail band.
Range map, Common Nighthawk. Orange is breeding, blue is wintering (wikipedia.org).
Carl, Francie, Don and Henry watching for nighthawks
The nighthawks flew until dusk.
Heirloom red and yellow Brandywine tomatoes, yum!
At our annual Common Nighthawk Watch party last night we saw 74 migrating Common Nighthawks from our deck which looks out over a small lake which is a dammed up section of a river corridor and nighthawks follow river corridors. Francie, Carl, us and ace hawk migration counter Henry, scanned the skies until nearly dark. The bad news for the nighthawks is not only are their populations dropping but some are headed to winter in Brazil where the Amazon forest is burning at a record rate right now. Huge amounts of fires have been set by farmers to clear land for business, encouraged by Brazil's president. No party would be good without delicious food such as heirloom Brandywine tomatoes from Rosaly's, greek pizza and stawberry rhubarb pie brought by Carl! Go look for nighthawks from 5:00 until dusk along river corridors.
