The Night Has Wings

An Apostle Islands postcard

These nights, I dream of flying. I am not alone. Psychologists say that next to sex and money, the most common subject of dreams is flight. A Scientific American study asked schoolchildren across the country what creature they would most like to be and the answer was, overwhelmingly, “a bird.” For many of us this time of year our dreams have wings. And the reason is not difficult to pinpoint.

According to Birdcast.org (a bird migration website run by Cornell University) some 166 million birds were in flight one night last week, migrating on a strong south wind. Over the islands, 3,594,500 migrating birds stirred the night air with their wings.

If birds left tracks in the sky, the air over the Islands would be ribboned with threads spooling north like a ball of colored yarn. And, since some 80% of birds migrate at night beginning 30 to 45 minutes after sunset and peaking three or four hours later, the night skies become a silent river of birds passing overhead just as we are lying down to sleep.

It is no wonder then that on these spring nights lulled by south winds, our dreams are stirred by wings.

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).