Migrating Common Nighthawk Tagged in Northern Maine Recorded at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

With 13,000 acres of pure panorama in Southwest Florida, Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a haven for wildlife. Its wealthy mosaic of habitats—starting from moist prairies and marshes to bald cypress and upland pine forests—mixed with its location within the Western Everglades and proximity to the Gulf Coast, attracts in a outstanding variety of birdlife. 1000’s of migratory birds use this space alongside the Atlantic Flyway every fall as a significant stopover, discovering meals, shelter, and relaxation earlier than persevering with their journeys south to locations within the Caribbean or Latin America, together with a latest Frequent Nighthawk recorded by the Motus Wildlife Monitoring Station!

Motus Station Background

A Motus Wildlife Monitoring Station on the Sanctuary, a part of a world system of radio receivers, supplies scientists and land managers with detailed details about the conduct and actions of birds.  By choosing up info transmitted by tiny tags scientists apply to the birds, Motus exhibits real-time information about migration.

Since its set up in 2022, the Sanctuary’s Motus station has recorded a complete of 27 tagged birds comprising 16 species. All however three people had been recorded throughout August, September, or October, emphasizing the Sanctuary’s significance throughout fall migration.

Maine Nightjar Monitoring Venture

The Frequent Nighthawk that flew previous the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary station in September originated in northern Maine, tagged as a part of the Maine Nightjar Monitoring Venture, run by Logan Parker with the Maine Pure Historical past Observatory.

After a number of night and early morning makes an attempt, Parker’s workforce efficiently captured and outfitted this nighthawk with a tag on the morning of July 31, 2024. A couple of weeks later, it was detected by a station at Massif du Sud, a ski resort in Quebec, because it started its southward migration.

The Nighthawk’s Migration

Alongside its migratory path, our nighthawk encountered six extra stations, together with one at Blackwater Nationwide Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland, which was the final to detect it in 2024. It possible spent the winter in South America earlier than it returned to the U.S. in Might of 2025, detected by a Motus station on the College of Georgia’s Eatonton Beef Analysis Farm, on its northward journey.

A number of different stations recorded the fowl because it returned to its summer season breeding space in Maine, together with in Maryland, New York, and Vermont.

Parker says he reencountered this fowl in the course of the 2025 subject season, monitoring it to its roost web site in a cedar swamp and capturing it in July. On August 23, 2025, our nighthawk was detected heading south once more because it handed by stations in New Hampshire, Connecticut, North Carolina, after which at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary on September 10, earlier than disappearing from the radar once more because it made its technique to its wintering grounds.

Venture Findings

Whereas Parker has but to actually dig deep into the detection information (that might be taking place this fall and winter), he says, “it has been fascinating to notice the variations in motion technique and detectability between Frequent Nighthawks and Japanese Whip-poor-wills,” which is his workforce’s different focal nightjar species. Each species are insect eaters.

In response to Parker, nighthawks are detected at Motus stations extra usually than whip-poor-wills throughout migration (and sometimes in the course of the breeding season), possible on account of variations of their foraging and migratory methods, typically flying at larger heights than whip-poor-wills.

The examine exhibits that these two comparable birds additionally migrate otherwise. “As demonstrated by the detection at your station, nighthawks observe the shoreline and cross the Gulf throughout their actions, whereas whip-poor-will typically transfer via the continent’s inside and skirt across the Gulf earlier than settling in Mexico and different elements of Central America,” Parker provides.

Defending Migratory Birds

Studying about birds’ migratory conduct is important when defending them all through their migratory journeys, in addition to at their breeding and wintering places. Be taught extra in regards to the Frequent Nighthawk’s migration at Audubon’s Bird Migration Explorer.

The workforce at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is devoted to creating these 13,000 acres a important resting, nesting, and feeding place for each migratory and year-round species. Workers research the rise and fall of water ranges, conducts prescribed hearth, manages invasive species, and restores habitat as a result of the issues birds depend on—wholesome habitats, clear air, plentiful recent water, resilient coastlines—are the identical issues that folks and different wildlife have to thrive.