A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1083 entries
birdfall
The sudden grounding of migrating birds in enormous numbers, when a night’s movement meets rain, fog, or a hard headwind and comes down all at once. A tree that held four birds yesterday holds four hundred. Warblers, thrushes, vireos, and flycatchers arrive together, exhausted and unbothered by people, feeding in the open at arm’s length. Coastal woodlots and offshore islands are where it concentrates, because they are the first solid ground on offer.
Etymology
Plain English, and the plainest possible description: The birds fall out of the sky. British usage says a fall, American usage says a fallout, and birdfall sits between them. Fall is Old English feallan, straight out of Proto-Germanic, one of the small words that has never needed to change. The technical vocabulary around it is more elaborate — drift migration, reverse migration, overshooting — but the word birders actually use when they run for the binocs is this one.
Notes
Machias Seal Island, off the Maine–New Brunswick line, is a well-known place for it; the lightkeeper’s account notes that with the windows open the house would fill with birds. High Island in Texas and Point Pelee in Ontario are the classic North American landfalls. It is unpredictable by nature, which is why people who chase it watch weather maps rather than calendars.