August 21. 2025. Peterborough, ON. Canada. With August drifting to an end we were called away for a bit of baby-sitting. Birding was not on my mind but I habitually watch anything airborne and birdlike, often it’s only gust-blown leaves. Late in this day, driving a moderately busy country road, I noticed a few gliding and swooping birds some way ahead. My quiet, inner thought was Barn Swallows although perhaps a little oversize and a touch erratic. Moments later, we’d slowed and they were overhead, not just one or two and not swallows, it was a flock of Common Nighthawks, ten maybe, then twenty, thirty, who knows.
I don’t see nighthawks often but now is when they gather in migratory or even pre-migratory flocks. Dusk is their favoured flight time. It’s a mesmerizing experience to watch them on the move.
A bit of research tells that they have a long flight ahead of them: from here to Florida, across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula, then continuing south to half way down the length of South America into southern Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay where they’ll spend our winter; roughly 10,000 kilometres and all on a diet of insects caught in mid-air. Reportedly, they often move in big, leaderless flocks, sometimes in long rectangular formations, adding local birds, pied-piper style, as they go. Curious and incredible.
It is unusual to see a Common Nighthawk anywhere other than overhead because by day they remain hidden and, like all members of the Nightjar family, they are cryptically patterned. Several years ago, we disturbed one on its forest-floor nest, it flew moth-like to a nearby branch and sat, waiting for us to go and hoping not to be seen. Here it is.
