This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Bird Watching, Migration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 18, 2008
The sight of a half million whirling creatures of any kind at one time and place is a dramatic and interesting experience.
A remarkable wildlife spectacle has unfolded in recent years on one small island on the Tennessee River. A hundred yards or so on the downstream side of the Wheeler Dam, hundreds of thousands of purple martins are using this small acre-size island to congregate in a large flock prior to their fall migration. Some estimates of this roost run as high as a half million.
Each evening about sunset, martins from all over the region can be seen flying toward this island and dam. As they arrive, they first perch by the thousands on power lines crossing the Tennessee River. Between sunset and dusk, still more thousands approach from up and down the river. On and on they come until just in the twilight of dusk they all make a wild flight to perch on small trees on the island. For a few spectacular minutes, the air is full of half a million swirling, chattering frantic birds. Soon, most of the limbs on the island’s trees begin to bend from the weight of birds perching wing-to-wing. As darkness falls, the flock quiets. Here they will stay until dawn when they will disperse into the surrounding area to forage for insects. During congregation and dispersal the concentration of these birds is so dense they can regularly be seen on local weather radar.
This will be repeated each night for about three weeks in August, until the flock leaves to begin their long migration to their wintering grounds in Central and South America.
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