Good morning!
last night birds were on the move again, especially along the Eastern Flyway. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
While migration was apparent across the entire Mid-Atlantic region, southeast winds appear to have favored the inland half of New Jersey last night. You can see from the Fort Dix and Dover radars that noticeably less birds were moving over the eastern half of the state, and most birds completely bypassed the eastern bay shore and the entire southern peninsula. Unfortunately, this appears to be a simple fact of geography, and in the absence of a western component to the wind, most of the birds passing over will do so west of this area. However, Sam Galick and Tom Reed report that they heard nocturnal flight calls from the State Park last night, numbering about 2-3 per minute. This would suggest, then, that some of the birds were probably being missed by the radar as the fog rolled in late last night. Interestingly, the reflectivity does appear to diminish from east to west throughout the night and into this morning, which is definitely atypical under normal conditions (which last night appeared to be). On that note, I’m heading out to The Cape to see what’s around!
Good Birding
David
3 responses to “Northbound birds”
More Pine Warblers and robins.
Originally posted to Jerseybirds-L:
What a great time of the year.
The first flight of ruby-crowned kinglets appear to have bipassed the southeastern portion of the state, showing up yesterday in both central NJ (B. Clough, Somerset), and further NE on Long Island, NY, whereas golden-crowned kinglets were widespread around Cape May County and reported from across the state. These came into Cape May on a noticeable flight Thursday night, along with northern flickers (Don Freiday counted 55 flickers at Higbee’s Beach, coming in from the south, on Friday morning).
Sam Galick and Tom Reed did a bang-up job tracking down the early warblers in Belleplain yesterday, only to find this morning that more Yellow-throated warblers had arrived on the flight from Friday night (conservatively, we had 8-9 today throughout the forest, where they only had them at the Sunset bridge yesterday morning). Last night, in 15 minutes of nocturnal flight call listening from the State Park in Cape May, they identified the dominant species as chipping sparrows, along with various other calls including Yellow-rumped Warbler and Great Blue Heron. This morning, as expected, the roadsides of Belleplain held more Chipping Sparrows than they had the previous day. Sam, Tom, and I ran into Steve Rodan (and promptly abducted him) at the concession area, but dipped on the previously reported Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (fide BJ Pinnock). On our way out of Belleplain, Sean Bamford (on the NJAS walk led by Jim Armstrong) tipped us off to a single Surf Scoter hanging out on Hands Mill Pond (just NW of the intersection of CR550 and CR347).
Opting not to head back to the foggy cape, Tom, Sam, Steve and I ventured to the north bayshore. Heislerville was a bust as the tide was high and the impoundments haven not been drawn down. We did have a few flocks of Dunlin whirling around looking for somewhere to land, but they pushed on when they found none, as did we. While no birds of note were seen from East Point Light, we did have an impressive view of the fog staged offshore of Cape May… “socked in” seemed an appropriate description. We moved on to Bivalve, via Robbinstown Rd, and walked the dike to some back exposed flats where Yellowlegs were coming in to roost and feed. In the 30 or so minutes we were there, we had over 100 Yellowlegs, split about 60/40 greater/lesser. A dozen or so Dunlin came in as well, but swarms of shorebirds could be seen at great distance, undulating across the saltmarsh… how frustrating it is to be limited to a few hundred yards of view!! The other nice birds at Bivalve were the white waders, including 14+ Snowys, and at least 3 Great Egrets. Tree Swallows and E Bluebirds were well represented in typical habitat throughout the day.
Did I miss something?? probably.
Anyway, tonight is looking like another good one for migration along the Eastern Flyway. Winds at ~3000 feet are out of the SW, while surface winds locally (Cape May) are from the SE. A cold front will push to the coast tonight and winds will turn clockwise throughout the night, until they’re NW by tomorrow. This should bode well for more coastal locations, as birds get pushed eastward. Cape May might not be the worst place to be tomorrow, but all spring migrant traps should see some new birds in the morning. These subtle transitions really make the whole migration process so fascinating…
Good Birding
David
Meadowlands in Bergen County, NJ (DeKorte Park) highlights today:
Great Egret – none on Thursday or before that, and I saw one near Kearny Marsh on Friday. 4 sightings today, each of a lone egret.
Chimney Swift – my FOY
Osprey
Also, the white-crowned sparrow numbers seem to be growing.