As many of you know, nocturnal migrant songbirds continue a migratory movement the morning each night they travel. This is referred to as "continued migration," "morning flight," and other descriptors. I have been watching this phenomenon for more than 30 years and what I have primarily learned is how little I know about it. (One could comment here regarding how little I know about most things, but that is a different conversation.) I have spent many mornings at Bluff Point's "Hot Corner" over the years. This is in no small part because I was the lucky individual to discover the phenomenon was occurring there and know what I'm missing on prime days if I don't go. It isn't the only place morning flight occurs but it is perhaps the best place in Connecticut to witness the spectacle. When the conditions are right many hundreds, even thousands, of migrant songbirds exit Bluff Point Coastal Reserve through what has been dubbed as the "Hot Corner." It can be an extraordinarily frustrating thing to have dozens and dozens of warblers and vireos and more flash past you at the same moment, but it is an amazing thing to experience. Of course it only happens on north winds and is best after a sharp cold front passes. At other times the "hot corner" can be stone cold! While I have been doing this observing at Bluff since the early 90s, I have also been listening in our yard for nocturnal flight calls (NFC) of thrushes and other migrants as they pass over on their journey to the wintering grounds. These NFCs are audible in our yard between 5a.m. and 6a.m. as the migrants start to come down from their nightlong movement. I routinely hear double digit thrushes passing over or coming in to land, and annually hear Gray-cheeked Thrushes in small numbers as well as presumed Bicknell's Thrushes (based on the belief their flight calls are similar to Gray-cheeked but distinctly higher frequency). Whether Bicknell's stays a separate species or whether their call is truly separable from Gray-cheeked is yet another question I'm not discussing here! Just as the morning flight at Bluff has enthralled me for a very long time, these mornings standing in our driveway listening to these diminutive travelers has been a deep personal pleasure for me. The recent addition of another neighborhood rooster who calls incessantly during this crucial time period each morning notwithstanding! Now I have added a new tool to my birding gear, a thermal monocular. This little gadget (with a not-so-little-price tag) detects temperature differences and presents them to an electronic viewfinder the user observes. It's much like using a video camera but you are not viewing visible light but rather infrared energy. Thus a bird flying over will appear as a brilliant image, but the nighttime stars whose heat energy has long dissipated before reaching us are not detected by this device. Using it I have been trying to determine just how high are these birds I have been hearing? Are they travelling alone or in company with others? And just what direction and speed are they going when they pass over? I have experienced some surprises. Firstly, many of these birds are not heading south when they pass over our yard but rather are headed east or west, or just meandering. even hovering, as they start to drop down looking for a place to land. I have also witnessed two bird images flying very close together and actually merging into one bright spot as they physically interact with each other during flight. Fascinating! Some individuals who are not yet actively looking for a place to put down do fly hard and fast southward as they pass over. And many more pass over than I actually hear calling. When a bat passes low in front of the thermal monocular its bright heat image and proximity often startles me. Even Moths are visible (who ever thought about how warm a moth is?!) One thing I should have realized, and didn't, is that clouds hold some heat energy, and I can actually see them bright against the blackness of the dark sky when its only partially cloudy and the coldness of the upper atmosphere provides some thermal contrast. All of this reminds me just how little we actually know about this awesome natural phenomenon that passes overhead every autumn. I will continue to listen, and now watch, in the darkness and try to in some small way to personally better understand. One side benefit of using this thermal monocular is witnessing the nightly mammal activity in our yard. Whether it is the multiple skunks and opossums under our birdfeeder, or a sleeping white-tailed deer in the woods, or the bright images of roosting Catbirds and Cardinals in the bushes, or even the Gray Fox who occasionally stands staring at the strange motionless man silent in the dark and barks at him, our yard has much more going on at night than I was aware of before I could see in the dark! Autumn in New England is such a wonderful time. Dave Provencher Preston