Wow that's pretty cool! I've never seen them do that before. Too bad there's never a video camera around when you need it is there?

That is SO AMAZINGLY COOL!! You should send this report to an official birding behavior site..dunno which one..maybe all of them. Never heard of such of thing, and maybe nobody else has either.

That is really interesting-we never fail to learn new behaviors from the birds! One evening this week I saw an adult and juvenile Red-headed woodpeckers "hawking" insects from a power pole. They would fly out & grab insects then return to the top & side of the pole, respectively. I don't remember ever seeing this from woodpeckers. I seldom see the Red-heads at all so this was really special.
Susan

I have a camera that takes video. Wouldn't have done me any good. I don't know how to use it. What's worse I left the camera at home this trip. I was kicking myself because When I got out of the truck Sunday I could hear the Pileated feeding. I have watched these birds at least three times without spooking them. I want some pics. I guess I could add that instead of the birds crashing into the branches they over flew them and triple struck them with their wing.I think this sound is what first brought my attention to the unusually noisy robins. I did notice this and remarked to myself that they knew enough to do it that way to remain in control of flight. The video camera probably wouldn't have pulled it off becuase of the panorama of the event took place as far as you could see to the left and as far as you could see to the right. It went on for long enough for me to decide to head around and enter the walk in basement to get the binoculars because I figured out that there were many birds in on this and I wanted to get a look at some "firsts". Too bad I hadn't a clue what I was looking at. I want to say I saw Vireo type birds as well. As far as reporting the incident I would bet Cornell U has some kind of hotline.Wish I knew who to "shout out" to. I figured here at the forum would be a great start. I think at this point I think the dates are a good thing to hold on to. And for sure I'll be watching for this again next year. One more thing.. This south facing hill in Central Maine is covered with more robins than I have ever witnessed anywhere else till the slugs start to dry up. Thanks for listening!

Birds are migrating right now. Their migratory times and habits are based, mostly, upon the availability of food along their route. During their migration, they will adapt different techniques for acquiring food than they normally use. Remember, not all birds read the bird books. And, they do observe, learn and adapt. They are not inanimate objects programmed to act a certain way.

An interesting technique I observed one day was 3 Mississippi Kites who were circling a tree full of Sparrows, at very high speed. The Kites were at different heights and positioned at different points around tree from one another.
A Sparrow would try to flee a circling Kite by going out the other side and, being smart, would flee at a different height than the kite it was fleeing from but, another kite would be coming around at that height, too. Within 5 minutes, each Kite had a Sparrow in it's talons and they left.
I was very impressed.

Those stories are so COOL!
I see bird behavior all the time that remains uncorroborated, such as the huge spiral of circling Turkey Vultures doing a vertical Virginia Reel or the Red-shouldered Hawk losing its crow pursuer by doing its specialty; flying straight into thick branches, where the crow soon found itself tangled, and gave up. I've seen two female Robins and two female Carolina Wrens fighting over males almost to the death, a pet Hispaniolan Amazon parrot fixing its wire swing by bending the hook back around with its beak, testing the swing, then bending the hook more until it held properly, then going back to swinging on it, etc.