The answer to the question I posed to Shari a couple of weeks ago, "I wonder if we get nighthawks out here?" is, "YES, do we ever!"
Around 6:30 this evening I looked up and said to Shari, "There's some kind of hawk up there." But it didn't look like a falcon--it more closely resembled a gigantic swallow. Shari spotted another, then I saw another. Bright white markings under the wings were all the field mark I needed. I went to the car, pulled out our Sibley's and sure enough: Common Nighthawks.
Now that I was sure I trained my binoculars on first one, then another, then another. By this time I had wandered into the middle of the street, to the amusement of our neighbors across from us. I'm guessing they think after our first couple of weeks here that while we're nice people, we sure do have our obsessions. But they got into the spirit and started pointing out more birds gliding above, perfectly lit by the low evening sun. "This is so cool," I said to D------ & S--, "seeing all these Common Nighthawks."
"Oh, we see them all the time," D----- said, "but they're just birds until some wiseass moves across the street and starts giving them names."
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