Relatively numerous Common Nighthawks were present yesterday evening  
(Sept. 2) in the vicinity of the Connecticut River around the Ledyard  
Bridge (between Hanover, NH, and Norwich, VT) between 6:12 and 7:19  
pm. They were spread out and difficult to count, but I estimated at  
least 41 nighthawks were present. The largest number seen at any one  
time was 9 birds. Between 6:50 and 7:06 pm, a total of 37 nighthawks  
were seen on the south side of the Ledyard Bridge and strung out while  
flying northward along the river, in a direction opposite to what  
might be anticipated during the time of fall migration. During the  
entire period of observation, no nighthawks were detected migrating  
southward along the river below the Ledyard Bridge.

Other birds of interest during the time of the nighthawk observations  
included 4 Double-crested Cormorants by the south side of the Ledyard  
Bridge and an adult Bald Eagle flying southward down the river.

For anyone who has not seen today's (Sept. 3) issue of the Valley News  
newspaper, an article starting on page C1 reports, with a color photo,  
on the adult White-tailed Tropicbird, which was picked up this past  
week on a lawn in Charlestown, NH, and then transported to the St.  
Francis Wild Bird Hospital in Lyme, NH, where it unfortunately  
succumbed.

This bird apparently provides the first state record for White-tailed  
Tropicbird in New Hampshire. For Vermont, according to Murin and  
Pfeiffer (2002, Birdwatching in Vermont, University Press of New  
England, page 170), there are records from North Danville and  
Woodstock, both on September 22, 1938, and associated with a major  
hurricane which reached northern New England.

George Clark
Norwich, VT