"Hank Pagel" wrote:

1. It may just have been the little suckers time.
2. Some birds do fly at night and do roost on the ground. ( If you
have ever been in the path of a woodcock migration on a full moon, you
might think it was raining birds.)

In fact, here in Chicago, at the tip of Lake Michigan, where the
migratory birds have to decide which side of the lake to fly north on,
they dim the lights in the buildings, to help keep birds from flying
into them, and dying.

Apparently birds use the stars for directions in their migration, and
the lights confuse them.

So there is like 6 week periods when they do this, spring and fall, to
help out the birds.

It was big news last spring, when a tagged whooping crane, spent a night
at some unknown location in Chicago. during its migration.