Safe travels, Common Nighthawks - Arapahoe

[Jared Del Rosso]

Unlike our first of years, we can only know our last of years in retrospect. So I offer well wishes to every Common Nighthawk I see in September, in case that one be my last. I've been lucky, though, to have October nighthawk sightings in about half of the eight Octobers I've lived in Centennial. Those birds are late enough for me to know that they're very likely the last I'll encounter in the year.

Tonight, over Arapahoe Road in Centennial, one nighthawk became a second, which became two more. The four fed over the neighborhoods near Holly Park in Centennial (approx. Arapahoe and Holly). Here's to them finding enough food, good passage south, and somewhere welcoming to spend the winter.

My October sightings in Centennial

• 10/10/2016 - deKoevend Park
• 10/3/2019 - near deKoevend Park
• 10/5 - 10/6/2020 - Willow Spring Open Space
• 10/3/2021 - near deKoevend Park (my partner's sighting, probable but not confirmed)
• 10/9/2023 - near Holly Park

I also thought I heard and saw two flyover Red Crossbills near Trader Joe's in Greenwood Village this morning. But I had neither my binoculars nor my phone -- and as they would have been the first I've heard in sometime, the call was unfamiliar. 

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO