My husband and I were walking to our car the other night in the small hometown where I grew up, and I was immediately mesmerized by all the stars and constellations I could pick out. In our city there’s too much light pollution to get a really good look at the night sky.
As I was searching for the Big Dipper, I was startled by a honk. A flock of Sandhill Cranes was flying right over our heads! We couldn’t see them, but we could definitely hear them.
I was several decades into birdwatching before I learned that if you step outside in the late evening or after dark in March through May, you might just hear migrating bird flocks passing overhead. And yet I had never tried it.
As the flock of cranes continued to move over us, I heard a Great-horned Owl hooting in the distance. This was getting fun!
Then there was a new noise. It almost sounded like small dogs barking. But as it continued and got louder, I realized that noise was also coming from the sky.
I want to kick myself for not reaching for my phone and the Merlin app at that moment. Then I would know what they were. Instead I tried to find them. In the dark. Thankfully they flew into the moonlit part of the sky over our heads.
They were low enough that I could see they were white and flying in a loose V-shape. They looked much smaller than Canada Geese. My guess is Snow Geese. They are on the move right now.
The next morning I listened to some recordings. Some Snow Geese calls do kind of sound like small barking dogs.
The wonderful BirdCast Migration Dashboard started up again on March 1st for the start of migration season. I check it every morning to know how many birds flew over my house overnight. It gives me a good idea of which days might be the best for birdwatching.
Birds often stop to rest and eat and drink for a day or two (or sometimes a week or more) before departing again, and that’s what makes migration season so much fun. You never know what species you might see.
I checked the dashboard to get data for my hometown. Up until that night, only a couple hundred to a few thousand birds had flown over on any given night—probably because March started rather cold and snowy. But on the night we heard the cranes and geese overhead, it was an unusually-warm March day. The wind was favorable from the south.
When I fired up the migration dashboard the next morning it said an estimated 78,000 birds had flown over my hometown the previous night!
Now that I know how much fun night birdwatching, er birdlistening is, I plan to make an effort to step outside more after dark in the upcoming days and weeks!