The Stone Bridge Nighthawk Watch in Setauket wrapped up its 8th year on Sunday in a dismal manner, with no nighthawks being recorded. This year was, by far, the worst with only 669 nighthawks being observed over the 41 days of the watch (August 27 - October 6). We had only one day where we tallied a triple digit count with 103 nighthawks observed on 9/12. Totals for the eight years are: 2046 nighthawks in 2017, 2018 nighthawks in 2018, 2757 nighthawks in 2019, 2245 nighthawks in 2020, 1819 nighthawks in 2021, 1625 nighthawks in 2022, 1022 nighthawks in 2023, and 669 nighthawks in 2024.
We do not know the cause for this decline but weather is a suspected cause. A low pressure system sat over the North Atlantic for more than a week at the end of the Watch and some conjectured that it created unfavorable winds for migration. Hopefully we'll have a better tally next year! John Turner -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") NYSbirds-L List Info: NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsWELCOME_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsRULES_DOT_htm NortheastBirding_DOT_com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave_DOT_htm ARCHIVES: 1) mail-archive_DOT_com/nysbirds-l@cornell_DOT_edu/maillist_DOT_html 2) surfbirds_DOT_com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) birding_DOT_aba_DOT_org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: ebird_DOT_org/content/ebird/ --
