What if they’re migrating? Up here in the mitten, some of our best chances at seeing migrating birds (both coming and going) are early evening, as they set out, and mid-morning, as they’re looking for a place to roost for the day. I know Red-wing Blackbirds are migratory—I sure do miss them this time of year.
One of the happy things about moving to S. FL was all the redwing blackbirds. I love them, they are everywhere and they are not only beautiful, I love to hear them sing in the spring. We had them in TX but not many and they mostly hung with those bad boy starling and cowbirds.
The mid-day roost does not make sense to me. Consider, the sun heats the earth, the earth heats the air - creating upward moving masses of air called ‘Doldrums’. The migratory birds find these doldrums, circle within then and ‘glide’ higher and higher - then leave the doldrum and ‘glide’ to the next one, and repeat.
Gliding is far easier and more efficient than flapping your wings for both altitude and distance - why work, when you can rest?
The night time flocking is a safety precaution, from predators. There is safety in numbers, so if a predator attacks, one ‘sqwalk’ can alert the entire flock; rather than being a lone prey.
The early-morning activity, IMHO is a feeding frenzy - to catch the insects while they are still a little lethargic (until the sun warms them up). Easy meal time - and a meal to last them for the day’s flight.
Just a farm boy’s observations.