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The "moon watch" is a modification of the direct observation method. It has long been known that many species of birds migrate at night. Until recently, it was not apparent just how important nocturnal migration really is. Significant information has been derived from watching, through telescopes, the passage of migrating birds across the face of a full moon. Since the actual percent of the sky observed by looking through a telescope at the moon is extremely small (approximately one-hundred thousandth of the observable sky), the volume of birds recorded is small. On a night of heavy migration, about 30 birds per hour can be seen. The fact that any birds are observed at all is testimony to the tremendous numbers passing overhead. Large-scale, cooperative moon-watching studies have been organized and interpreted by George H. Lowery, Jr. (1951; Lowery and Newman 1966).

Another specialized direct observation approach which has yielded important information on the spatial and altitudinal distribution of night migrating birds has been the use of small aircraft equipped with auxiliary landing lights (Bellrose 1971). Major disadvantages of night observation are that species cannot be identified and that birds continue to migrate without a full moon. However, these techniques do give information on the nocturnal migration movements that could not be obtained by other methods.