Bay-breasted warblers make the lengthy journey from Canada and the northeastern U.S. to Central America for the winter, with many passing by Maine. No marvel they had been caught on video by this lobsterman! (picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
There was loads of hype main as much as Lee. First is was a hurricane, then a tropical storm. Thankfully, hurt of all types registered at least. The identical is true for vagrant hen sightings, as we’ve written about beforehand right here at our Natural Resources Council of Maine weblog.
But there was a storm-related “bird sighting” of one other kind that did trigger a flurry of pleasure, regardless. It was the day the lobsterman noticed birds falling from the sky.
We had been tipped off to this celestial occasion when a reader of our weekly Boothbay Register column despatched us a hyperlink to a wild TikTok video taken just a few days earlier than Hurricane Lee was anticipated to hit. In the video, a young Maine lobsterman is standing on the wheel of his boat, narrating concerning the large numbers of small migrating land birds he and his lobstering crew had been seeing offshore.
Some of the birds had been making an attempt to land on the boat; others, within the water. As the video begins, the lobsterman is internet hosting what appears like a Bay-breasted Warbler, exhausted, on his head! Soon we see little birds flying across the boat. The video reveals that the lobstering crew have been capable of wrangle 5 or 6 underneath some netting, with the intent to carry them safely to shore. Among them, we might establish the intense yellow faces of a number of Black-throated Green Warblers and the grey cap and yellow breast of a Philadelphia Vireo.
Click on picture to look at full video
Another section in the identical TikTok reveals lots of of birds swirling across the lights of a unique boat.
The lobsterman talking within the video expresses concern that these giant numbers of birds could also be an omen of how dangerous the upcoming hurricane may become. At the top of the piece, with the boat moored in a basic Maine harbor dotted with different lobster boats, a tiny and colourful Northern Parula Warbler, gleaming yellow and blue, lands on the top of his bemused sternman.
Like the lobster boat crew, you might be questioning: What was happening?
Many individuals don’t notice that the majority birds migrate at night time. At the peak of fall migration within the U.S., underneath favorable migration situations, lots of of thousands and thousands of birds move overhead as we sleep soundly in our beds. As daybreak breaks, these migrating birds drop down into the panorama under them to eat, drink, and relaxation till the following night time when, in the event that they’ve gotten good relaxation and nourishment, they proceed alongside their nocturnal migration journey.
Sometimes, birds flying close to the coast drift out over the ocean in the course of the night time. As the solar begins to rise, they’ll search for a spot to spend the day resting and replenishing their bodily reserves. Places like Monhegan Island are a magnet for birds in these circumstances, drawing them in as they seek for a protected place to relaxation.
Boats, too, can grow to be refuges for birds, particularly when no land is in sight.
A couple of years in the past, on a visit out to Monhegan, we had a number of Magnolia Warblers circle repeatedly across the boat, one touchdown briefly on the top of a shocked passenger.
What’s totally different on this TikTok video is the sheer quantity of birds concerned. For this to occur, there normally must be clear skies and infrequently mild, northerly winds. This causes a excessive variety of birds to fly aloft as they migrate at night time. When a big quantity of night-migrating birds encounters wet and/or foggy situations whereas nonetheless flying, they search a spot to land. They might abruptly discover themselves in a disorienting swirl that makes it onerous for them to tell apart the bottom, bushes, buildings, land, or water. At night time on this state of affairs, birds typically are drawn to lights and can typically proceed to swirl round and round them of their confusion.
Black-throated Green Warblers had been a few of the birds rescued by this lobsterman off the coast of Maine (picture by Fetafete, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Lighthouse keepers alongside the Maine coast typically reported discovering a lot of useless birds underneath such situations on the base of the sunshine. We ourselves have witnessed birds following the sunshine of a lighthouse round and round at night time.
The occasions proven in these movies in all probability are the results of migrating birds caught in these situations. This wouldn’t have been because of the hurricane, though the eventual northward path of the storm was associated to the identical climate situations that impacted the southward paths of these migrating birds. And hurricanes do have main impacts to migrating birds, typically possible killing giant numbers underneath sure situations. Other occasions they might simply trigger birds to alter their path or hunker down and wait issues out. Some bigger birds, like sure shorebirds, might be able to reap the benefits of the stronger northerly winds on the western fringe of a hurricane to get south even sooner than regular.
Sometimes hurricanes suck up oceanic birds from farther south and basically spit them out farther north and even over land when the storm weakens. Birders like to search for these way-out-of-range species that they might usually by no means get to see, a minimum of not the place they reside. Although Lee didn’t ship tremendous vagrants our method, it did provide an opportunity to seize a rare hen occasion on video and, we hope, for others to study somewhat one thing due to it!
—Jeff and Allison Wells
