Seeing several emails about nighthawks I went out to see if there were any
flying about over the Flint Hill School east campus along route 123. There
were no nighthawks. Instead i was surprised to see a steady, though sparse,
stream of bats moving in a northerly direction as if they were migrating. They
flew overhead below tree-top level from among and between the trees as well as
about 20 feet above the tall oaks. A few circled back around the trees and
buildings, foraging, but then all (I think) continued on. I counted 60-65
small bats between about 8:25 and 8:55. They seemed to be flying in loose
flocks since there would be spells when 8 or so could be seen in the sky at the
same time and then periods of a few minutes with no bats at all. I don't know
my bats but all seemed the same size and shape. If any of you are also
bat-watchers I would love to hear back from you about this. I have never seen
this many bats in Oakton. Usually I see 4 or
5 flying around foraging at dusk.
My attention was so drawn to the bats that I did not do a good job at counting
the chimney swifts that again are using the chimney of neighboring Oakton
Elementary school as a roost. I was glad to see them here because they did not
use it during the fall migration so I thought that maybe it had been capped. A
very rough estimate is 100-200 birds. I will try to make a more careful count
soon--maybe try to count them on their way out tomorrow AM.
All the best
Fred
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
http://tea.armadaproject.org/tea_atwoodfrontpage.html
