2010 Nighthawk Survey

Hi All-

The 2010 fall SuAsCo and Nashua River Valleys & Beyond Nighthawk Survey begins this year on Monday, August 9, and runs through the first ten days of September. The purpose of the survey is to collect key statistics on the continuing dramatic decline in Common Nighthawk migrants that began in the Boston and SuAsCo valley areas more than 100 years ago and has now spread across all of central and northern MA north to northern Canada.

Our survey area is bounded on the north by Concord NH, on the south by the headwaters of the Blackstone River, on the west by the Connecticut River valley, and on the east by the Merrimack/SuAsCo River valleys.
 
No specific time commitments are required to participate in the survey and each participant gets to decide where, when, and how often to do the survey. Observers report their sightings via our website and receive reports back on a real-time basis of what others have seen.  

For those who have never seen a nighthawk or would like to brush up on their nighthawk identification skills, Friends of the Assabet River and Oxbow NWRs, Brookline Bird Club, Organization of the Assabet River, Stow Conservation Trust, Sudbury Valley Trustees, and USF&WS are co-sponsoring a nighthawk briefing from 7:30 to 9 pm on Tuesday, August 17. This briefing will address how to identify nighthawks, where and when to look for them, and how to report your observations. Then on a second evening shortly thereafter, participants will have the opportunity to get some hands-on field experience by joining a small field team led by an experienced nighthawk observer to look for nighthawks at one or more observation sites in the SuAsCo valleys.

The August 17 briefing will be held at the Sudbury Valley Trustees Wolbach Farm headquarters on Wolbach Road in Sudbury, MA. From Old Sudbury Center and the Sudbury town hall go east on Route 27 approximately one mile to Wolbach Road on the right and turn right to the first house on the right. If you get to the Sudbury River bridge, you have gone too far.

For further information about the survey and to register to participate, please go to our new Nighthawk Survey website. If you are interested in attending   the survey briefing or have any questions, please contact Hank Norwood at hankn583@aol.com or nighthawks@borobirding.net.

                           Hank Norwood and Jeff Slovin