On an early May night, Paul Smith’s College sophomore Nik Main sat in a mostly empty classroom, taking turns with a few others listening to call notes from birds migrating overhead in the dark sky.
The calls were coming down into the classroom through a rooftop microphone that had been set up the previous summer to track the number and types of migrating birds that fly in the region during the spring and fall migrations. Last August, the station captured hundreds and sometimes thousands of birds flying through the sky at night.
“I’ve been interested in nocturnal play calls before, but this really kind of opened my eyes,” Main said. “I’ve never had the chance to put on headphones and (observe) it in real time.”
Also in early May, ornithologist Andrew Farnsworth stood near the top of Manhattan’s Empire State Building, watching migrating birds. Farnsworth visually observed 50 to 100 birds flying past him each minute,
