Welcome to May. About this time each spring we see the peak migration of birds heading north to their nesting grounds. Last year the peak day was April 29, this year to date it was May 3. So far, as I type, the total number of birds that have passed over Dawson and Custer Counties this spring is just short of 23 million! As astounding as that sounds, it is four million fewer than this time last year and only 42% of the birds expected to cross on their way north. On the night of the 3rd, almost seven million birds flew over our county!

I do say “night” because the vast majority of songbirds migrate at night. There are multiple ideas as to why they fly at night. One is that they use the stars to help guide them on their way. Secondly, it is cooler at night and flying generates a lot of body heat so unless you are a bird that can soar and catch the thermals, flying in the daylight would lead to overheating.

Lastly, flying at night the small songbirds don’t have to risk the predatory hawks that can hunt them on the fly during the day. There are owls active at night, but with the exception of the great horned owl they don’t catch birds on the fly, and even the great horned owls would prefer to grab something on the ground.

Songbirds can fly up to 55 miles an hour with a little help from the wind and they migrate for eight to 10 hours at a time, meaning they can travel up to 500 miles in one night! They will then rest and feed for a day or two to build up their strength for another night of flying.

Most birds use their songs to attract mates and/ or defend nesting territories, which is why they are all so noisy this time of year. However, they also have calls during migration. These calls may be a way to maintain contact with others also migrating. Listening stations have been set up all along migration routes and the calls of migrating birds are recorded.

Computers then match the recorded calls with the birds making the calls. This, along with radar stations, is how we can track migrating birds. According to the calls recorded some of the birds migrating over our County the last few nights are yellow-rumped warblers, western kingbirds, house wrens, towhees, field sparrows, vesper sparrows, lark sparrows and chipping sparrows.

Now is the best time of year for bird watchers.

Some of the migrants will stop here to rest for a day or two and a number of species will settle in and start nesting. For example, the Baltimore orioles and ruby-throated hummingbirds are here so have your grape jelly and sugar water out. The spring migration for songbirds runs through May with some stragglers into June. By mid-June it is expected that over 55 million birds will have crossed over Dawson County.

If you want to keep up with what species are on their way, or have already passed over, go to the “Journey North” website (https://journeynorth.org/).

If you want to monitor the number of birds passing over Dawson County each night go to https://dashboard. birdcast.info/region/US-NE-047.