Now try counting the stars as they whirl around the sky in ever morphing clouds that settle to earth while more stars flow in from every direction creating another shape-shifting cloud. And another.
Other analogies: Imagine counting pepper flakes in the sky. Look up "Brownian motion." Think smoke.
That's what it was like at the Maurice River Bridge in Cumberland County last evening where we, with about 100 others, watched thousands and thousands of Purple Martins fly into to roost in the phragmites of the marsh the river meanders through. It is a spectacle of nature that every birder should experience. (It is also the exception to my rule that "I only have to see one.") A few drivers slowed down on the bridge to ask what was going on (fireworks, perhaps?) and drove away perplexed with the answer, "Purple Martins, thousands."
As the martins begin to stage for their migration down to South America they fly in to this roost from 50 or 75 miles away. The staging goes on anywhere from a couple of weeks to more than a month as some leave and others arrive in great flocks. I heard one estimate yesterday that altogether there might be a half a million birds coming through the area. I heard one estimate last night that there were 200,000 birds we saw coming in to roost. My guess, which kept increasing started at 40,000, went to 60,000 to finally 100,000, which seemed like a nice round number. How the experts can estimate numbers is beyond me and I know all about partitioning the sky into sections, taking an estimate, then extrapolating. The swirling flocks are too dynamic, I think, to do that.
We arrived around 5 o'clock and after a few minutes I saw one martin. The "show" doesn't really begin until dusk, around 7:30. At first, you see 10 or 12 martins flying overhead. Then the flocks get a little larger until suddenly, like a big bang, half the sky in a 180 degree pan is dark with birds. You can hear them chattering in the distance. By 8:30 they settled down for the night. It occurred to me that early morning, when the martins rise up out of the marsh, must be just as spectacular, yet no one that I know has mentioned going there to watch that scene.
While waiting on the observation platform that Citizens United to Save the Maurice River and Its Tributaries has put in place, we saw a number of the usual birds you'd find in that environment, the 2 most interesting being a Clapper Rail heard in the marsh and a Bald Eagle that landed briefly on a telephone pole.
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| There's one! Photo: Shari Zirlin |
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 1
Snowy Egret 1
Osprey 5
Bald Eagle 1
Clapper Rail 1 Heard
Laughing Gull 50
Herring Gull 1
Great Black-backed Gull 2
Forster's Tern 2
Mourning Dove 4
Eastern Kingbird 1
Fish Crow 1
Purple Martin 100,000
Tree Swallow 100
Barn Swallow 20
European Starling 200
Red-winged Blackbird 2
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