There's a new way to view one of the Houston area's great unseen spectacles: the massive migration of millions of birds across the sky each night.
And if you're not a night owl, you can catch up with the previous night's action the following day.
Most birds migrate at night, with stars and the moon helping in navigation. With a more stable atmosphere, it's easier smaller birds to maintain a steady course, and cooler temperatures help keep hard-working birds from overheating. Plus, for birds that often wind up as lunch for hawks, cats, and other daytime predators, flying under cover of darkness can be a lifesaver.
Now, BirdCast - a project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and other universities - can show you the number, speed, direction, and altitude of birds cruising through the darkness over you head, even suggesting which species are most likely up there.
It provides radar-based measurements in near real time or as a summary of a whole night. For example, the dashboard shows more than a million flew over Harris County Monday night into Tuesday morning.
Just type in your county at birdcast.info and you're set.