Sorry for posting so late…I was watching the Mets get beat up on by the Phillies last night…such a bummer.
What I did notice at the stadium though, was that it took a heck of a long time before the weather actually cooled down, indicating that the cold front was stalled across our area for several hours after sunset. If conditions aren’t good for migration by a certain point in the night (usually around midnight), many birds will opt not to migrate even if conditions improve afterward. I had a feeling that this might happen last night. After looking at the radar it seems like it might have happened over central and northern New Jersey (see the images below), but it looks like southern New Jersey might have had more of a push late last night. Since the cold front was stalled around the Chesapeke Bay, it’s possible that (possibly) Cape May and (probably) Delaware had a good influx of birds. Again, it’s hard to tell from the radar, but it looked that way to me. On the Fort DIX radar you can see some anomalous propagation after sunset, owing to the warmer ground and cooler evening temps (causing a temperature inversion), but only a light southbound migration later in the evening as the front finally cleared and the northerlies built in. I’m very interested to hear field reports from today to see if this is actually what happened.
What I did notice at the stadium though, was that it took a heck of a long time before the weather actually cooled down, indicating that the cold front was stalled across our area for several hours after sunset. If conditions aren’t good for migration by a certain point in the night (usually around midnight), many birds will opt not to migrate even if conditions improve afterward. I had a feeling that this might happen last night. After looking at the radar it seems like it might have happened over central and northern New Jersey (see the images below), but it looks like southern New Jersey might have had more of a push late last night. Since the cold front was stalled around the Chesapeke Bay, it’s possible that (possibly) Cape May and (probably) Delaware had a good influx of birds. Again, it’s hard to tell from the radar, but it looked that way to me. On the Fort DIX radar you can see some anomalous propagation after sunset, owing to the warmer ground and cooler evening temps (causing a temperature inversion), but only a light southbound migration later in the evening as the front finally cleared and the northerlies built in. I’m very interested to hear field reports from today to see if this is actually what happened.
Good Birding
