Last night the winds turned from NW (late last night) to NE (early this morning) and continued the trend of heavy migration over the northeastern and mid-Atlantic US. Here’s the radar from 6:00pm last night through 6:00am this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
As you can see from the regional composite, the entire NE and mid-Atlantic experience heavy migration last night (look at Lake Ontario- you can see the birds streaming over the lake!). The local radar for NYC showed heavy migration heading WSW, illustrating both the effect of the easterly wind and the desire for birds to migrate over land versus over water. The NJ radars showed heavy migration from sunset through 2am this morning. Birds began heading almost due south, with a little southeasterly movement very early in the night, but switched to southwest as the NE winds built in overnight.
Expect new birds at most locations this morning, with the interior migrant traps being the best for diversity and density. Sandy Hook will not be a good place for finding high densities of migrants this morning, on account of the continued NE winds. Raccoon Ridge, Chimney Rock, and other inland locations will be favored. Down south, the Delaware Bay shore should be a 180-degree difference from yesterday, so good luck to Tom as he birds his local haunts. The dike should be slow this morning, but I wouldn’t discount it altogether, as a slow day at the dike means that someone like me might actually have a chance with the overflight ID’s. Plus, you never know what crazy rarity might show up at that place!
Good Birding
David
One response to “Another big flight last night”
Ha! So I was a little off… damn! I told myself that today could be good at the Dike, since the NW winds would likely blow birds offshore overnight before the NE winds built in during the morning… but I wasn’t prepared for a spectacular flight at Higbees! Thanks to Cameron and the crew down there for counting and reporting the birds on Birdcapemay.org. Here’s Cameron’s report:
Morning Flight Sunday September 6 2009
posted by Cameron Cox | 3:27 PM
The morning was, in short, spectacular. There were birds going all over the place. Once again, 20 species of warblers were observed and, including 759 unidentified warblers, 1797 warblers were counted. The highlights included the first two Connecticut Warblers of the season, a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, a lateish Orchard Oriole, as well as spectacular views of most of the common warblers in stellar light.
Location: Cape Island–Higbees Beach SWA–Dike
Observation date: 9/6/09
Number of species: 96
Mallard 8
Blue-winged Teal 1
Northern Shoveler 3
Double-crested Cormorant 85
Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 2
Snowy Egret 3
Black Vulture 4
Turkey Vulture 3
Osprey 2
Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 3
Cooper’s Hawk 1
American Kestrel 5
Peregrine Falcon 1
Semipalmated Plover 5
Killdeer 2
Spotted Sandpiper 3
Lesser Yellowlegs 8
Sanderling 5
Semipalmated Sandpiper 45
Western Sandpiper 5
Least Sandpiper 14
Laughing Gull 115
Herring Gull 10
Great Black-backed Gull 15
Common Tern 12
Forster’s Tern 15
Royal Tern 6
Rock Pigeon 18
Mourning Dove 10
Common Nighthawk 2
Chimney Swift 9
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 4
Belted Kingfisher 1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 1
Empidonax sp. 3
Eastern Kingbird 85
White-eyed Vireo 2
Warbling Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 7
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 16
Fish Crow 4
Purple Martin 6
Tree Swallow 22
Bank Swallow 3
Cliff Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 45
Carolina Chickadee 4
Tufted Titmouse 3
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Carolina Wren 8
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 4
Veery 6
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 32
Gray Catbird 8
Northern Mockingbird 3
European Starling 120
Cedar Waxwing 35
Blue-winged Warbler 2
Tennessee Warbler 4
Nashville Warbler 4
Northern Parula 131
Yellow Warbler 133
Chestnut-sided Warbler 2
Magnolia Warbler 14
Cape May Warbler 3
Black-throated Blue Warbler 38
Black-throated Green Warbler 5
Blackburnian Warbler 5
Prairie Warbler 3
Blackpoll Warbler 5
Black-and-white Warbler 118
American Redstart 480
Worm-eating Warbler 1
Ovenbird 8
Northern Waterthrush 82
Connecticut Warbler 2
Common Yellowthroat 8
Scarlet Tanager 7
Field Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 12
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 2
Blue Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 2
Dickcissel 2
Bobolink 380
Red-winged Blackbird 65
Common Grackle 4
Orchard Oriole 1
Baltimore Oriole 86
House Finch 6
American Goldfinch 4
House Sparrow 9