What a beautiful day it was yesterday! around 70 degrees F, blue skies, light southerly wind… it really felt like the spring equinox. Well, last night I can only imagine many birds feeling the same way, and based on the radar, they did. Here’s the radar from 7:00pm last night through 5:30am this morning.

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

The regional composite really does the best job of telling the story this morning; I think. Southerly flow was evident from the surface to 3000+ feet last night, allowing for widespread migration across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. These winds are an effect of the low pressure system approaching from the southwest, and associated cold front sinking down from the northeast, cradling the space of high pressure over our region. As the low continues to advance to the east, and the cold front remains across the Northeastern US, we will see this wind gradient deepen and ultimately culminate in tonight’s migration event (okay, I’m jumping the gun here a bit).

So last night birds continued on the typical spring approach, a predominantly SSW->NNE trajectory across the region. With no significant weather to concentrate birds, the best locations will be those along the major axis of travel, which I had mentioned in yesterday’s post (but which you know as the “tried and true” spring migrant traps). Given how early it still is, I would expect that most of the birds in this migration cloud are short-distance passerines, along with many waders, ducks, geese, etc. I visited Jake’s Landing yesterday morning and was impressed with the number of high altitude ducks and geese as well as the odd Great Blue heron coming in from the south at daybreak (I also had at least three Pine Warblers in the first 100 yards of the pines, coming from the marsh-side. Presumably two of these were new arrivals. Other birds of note were four Eastern Meadowlarks, an Osprey occupying one of the platforms, a pair of Bald Eagles, and lots of N. Flickers, Carolina Wrens, and a nesting pair of Carolina Chickadees).

So, tonight if the heavy rains hold off (as they are forecast to do) we should see a large flight of birds coming up from the south and terminating somewhere over New Jersey. The fallout line will depend on whether the stalled cold front pushes back up north or not during the night, but either way, we should keep a close eye on its placement throughout the night and into the morning to explore the possibility of our first fallout of the spring season. Again, this would be very different than, say, a fallout on May 2nd (or even April 2nd!), but it will still be interesting to see what effects the weather will have on the migration cloud.

Good Birding

David