Birds apparently took to the sky last night as winds were favorable over a good portion of the region. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:00am.
Frames are every 1/2 hour for reflectivity and velocity, and every hour for the regional composite. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
The regional composite shows a gradient of migration density over the Mid-Atlantic last night, with the heaviest movement over Virginia and North Carolina tapering to moderate levels up into New Jersey. The cold front can also be seen pushing into the region early this morning, effectively shutting down migration in the southern region, but not reaching the northern sector until much later (in fact, a small amount of birds appeared to still be migrating at 5:00am).
Looking at the New Jersey radars, it appears that migration into the southern half of the state decreased sharply after about 11:00pm, as strong thunderstorms associated with the front pushed into the region. In the northern half of the state, though, migration continued to increase after 11:00pm and remained moderately strong until being shutdown by thunderstorms around 3:00am.
Based on the radar, I don’t see a classic ‘Fallout’ scenario unfolding last night, but the images do provide some insight into good birding locations for today. Most birds entering from the south appeared to do so from the northwestern Delaware Bay and Pennsylvania region, not from the eastern Delaware shore, which makes me think that places like Belleplain will have better birding conditions than Cape May this morning. Also, because migration was heaviest in the central part of the state, and thunderstorms appeared to shut down migration in the early morning, Garret Mountain should show increased diversity and density today. Additionally, since birds has a good chance to migrate for most of the night, and the winds were strong from the southwest, Sandy Hook would have to be good this morning.
It looks like most of the rain has cleared out- so get out there and report back with your findings!
Good Birding
David
P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org
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4 responses to “Birds over Jersey”
Great info. Wish I could get out to the spots you mentioned, but sadly I’ll be working on my basement. I’ll be heading out to Bucks County, PA next week which should be a great spot for birding.
Sandy Hook this morning held very large numbers of juncos – clearly migrating north – also lots of g-c kinglets, field sparrows, phoebes. Most of these were probably migrants.
All the birds were very vocal, particularly the resident birds. It was a loud morning!
Very cool patterns. Unfortunately the weather this weekend kept us from our planed birding trip. No further positive ID on the indigo buntings. I thought I caught a glimpse of one in a tree down the street from my house but I was doing 50mph and didn’t have time to stop and investigate further. Will keep my eyes open and try for a picture.
Very cool. I wish I could also see birds migrating