During the hovering flight they produce a soft, sibilant sound. The hovering behavior may be a part of courtship in that it attracts females. The display also attracts males so that a small aggregation of several males and a female may gather on the bare ground beneath the hovering male. In voluntary or appetitive flights, adults fly a distance of 2 to 36 feet at heights of usually 1 to 2 feet. They undulate and may crepitate as they fly.
Adults are wary and flush readily at the approach of a person.
In flushed flight they may travel a distance of 4 to 70 feet or much farther in a strong wind. They fly at heights of 1 to 5 feet and often make a right angle turn at variable distances into the flight before landing on the ground. No special study of dispersal or migratory flight has been made, but it is known that adults have moved from resident localities near Boulder, Colorado to nonresident mountain sites above 10,000 feet, approximately 14 miles west. In the vicinity of Washington, D.C., considerable numbers frequently fly around the electric lights during warm summer nights. The species has also been collected at lights in Presidio, Texas and in North Branch and Minneapolis, Minnesota.