Last night the northern mid-Atlantic saw winds shift from northwesterly to northeasterly, while the southern part of the region was under easterly flow the entire night. This made for some interesting migration patterns, which ultimately resulted in a NE–>SW trajectory by 5:00am this morning. Here’s the radar from 7:00pm last night until 5:00am today.

Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.

As was the case yesterday, the regional composite shows heavy migration across the mid-Atlantic and most of the Northeast. In fact, there’s no precipitation to be found anywhere in either region, therefore all the signal you see is bird migration. This tells us two things. First, migration was heavy; and second, no weather-related obstacles exist to concentrate birds this morning. Therefore anyone trying to predict the best birding conditions will have to rely solely on geographical features of the landscape… which is another way of my saying: “the best bets will be tried-and-true fall migrant traps” (darn… I was trying to avoid saying that…).

So, given that most of the region was under northeasterly flow by early this morning, I’d expect inland locations to fare better than coastal ones (which is good- because the beaches will be PACKED today!). With the added bonus of early raptor movement, why not head up to the ridges? I keep pounding the idea of Chimney Rock, not because I have some secret affinity to the place, but because of its strategic fall migration location at the south end of the Watchung mountains. As birds make their way down the ridge by daybreak, this is the last stop before the city of Manville… and if you’re a bird, you’d much rather spend the day in the woods along the ridge than in the streets of Manville (although, if you’re a Neotropical migrant, you might want to stop into Tierra Del Sol II for some killer authentic Costa Rican Gallo Pinto… now I’m hungry). The result can be wave after wave of birds coming down the ridge to the point at Chimney Rock, with the added bonus of those birds that overshot the point, returning after daybreak as they find themselves in sub-optimal habitat (yes, Manville is sub-optimal habitat. For birds.)

View Larger Map

If you head up to the Kittatinny Ridge, you’ll have the added bonus of Bald Eagles (which had a good flight yesterday according to reports from Raccoon Ridge), but finding the migrants might be a bit more challenging given the extensive habitat and lack of concentration point. The trade off, of course, are the sweeping vistas and chance to see giant eagles at eye-level.

Wherever you decide to go, have a great Labor Day and please stop back and let us know what you saw.

Good Birding

David

P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org

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