Updated 05/12/05 @ 6:30am
The radar now covers from sunset last night through sunrise this morning. As you can see from the updated radar, the wind finally switched to the north around 3am, shutting down the big migration. Many birds were over the state at the time, so I would think that most locations are looking good this morning. Sandy Hook is still my favorite pick, but the windy conditions may make it difficult to bird. Garret Mountain will likely be good today as well.
Old post from 05/11/05 @10:45pm
An interesting phenomenon is occurring tonight. Birds are on the mega-move along the east coast, but New Jersey seems to be the northern limit of the migration. The prevailing wind from Virginia to New Jersey is light out of the south, whereas the winds over central New York are out of the west/northwest, causing the northbound birds to veer east toward the coast. This funneling effect can be seen on the radar and velocity, as birds are clearly going right over the NE corner of the state (Hey Scott- this might set up one of those killer Sandy Hook mornings we were talking about today). A good deal rides on how this weather plays out over the next few hours, but so far it looks like the coast will be the big migrant magnet tomorrow morning.
Sandy Hook…hmmm…I do have to write a paper…
I’ll try and post an early morning addition, but I recommend using the real-time site in the case I don’t.
3 responses to “Big Migration Over New Jersey”
It’s slow around here in Somerset…
In the yard this morning were a single Am. Redstart and Black-throated Blue warbler. In the fields were the resident Prairie Warblers and Common Yellowthroats, and in the woods the resident Wood Thrush, Red-eyed Vireo, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, House Wrens, Northern Cardinals and Gray Catbirds. Overall it’s noisy with birds, but not much in terms of density and diversity. It looks like most of the migrants moved out overnight…I wonder how Garret and Sandy Hook are today…
For me in Tenafly it was just too windy at around 7:00 to see if there were any migrants. I didn’t hear too much either, but that could be a function of the wind as well.
By the end of the day it did not seem that Central Park, Garret, Sandy Hook et all posted any word of big fallouts. Perhaps just a result of jaded birders ?
Jim,
I was wondering that myself, but see Mike Britt’s post from Jersey City. While not a fallout, it’s still impressive for a coastal site. It would be nice though if more people would post here with their observations, or hotlink to their post in the jerseybirds archive. Thanks for posting! 🙂