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Featuring original works of fine art photography and limited-edition prints by regional and local artists. 372 Fore Street Portland Maine 04101 207 874-8084 www.forestreetgallery.com Three Pears 5x7 oil by Tracy Medling 10 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine Editorial Colin W. Sargent Editor Publisher RhondaFaRnhamBiRdsJeRemiahTRimBlemRqe.com D o you like to travel by night Maines dismalcurvyroadscanbedaunting. Thats why what songbirds do is so incredible. Theyre driven to fly north along the blackest of turnpikes at dizzy heightswhether they like it or not. Particularly in May yellow warblers and scarlet tanagers flicker above us unseen to- ward the Northern Boreal Forest in Cana- da during migration. Also black-throated greenwarblersindigobuntingsrose-breasted grosbeaks orange-crowned warblers Ameri- can redstartsan estimated three billion birds says Dr. Jeff Wells of the Bore- al Songbird Initiative. Hitting the night highway from winter getaways in South America Central America and Mexico Millions of them pass over the nighttime landscape of Maine bumping into each other plunging on. Why do they do it Why do we go to L.L. Bean The magnetite in the back of our heads tells us this is the cool place to be. How do we know the birds are flying over us Some preliminary observational papers published by the late 1800s took note of the phenomenon Wells says. While few could see the birds we could hear them Some ornithologists and birders were aware that some thrush- es could be identified by their calls as they flew overhead at night in the early and mid 1900s and a few ornithologists began using acoustic techniques ra- dar and ceilometers to study nocturnal migration beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. There has been a surge in research to identify the nocturnal flight calls of birds in the last 10 to 20 years. Also northbound over Portland in night- ly swarms purple finches and ru- by-crowned kinglets. True tourists many touch down en route and vaca- tion with us here in Maine. Maybe a Baltimore oriole winters in Mexi- co swoops down and lands in a tree at Laudholm Farm. Yeah this place feels right. Well stay here for a while. No wonder songbirds named red- eyed vireos cool their heels here after so much night driving. See we returnfollowing instinct directed by desire. Were ships in the night seeking our ports. Dont try to make sense of it as we fight for park- ing spaces on Exchange Street at night. Were here because we need to be here. We cant help ourselves. They Fly by Night