With winds being light and northerly (emphasis on light!), birds did what birds do this late in the spring- they migrated! Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning. Unfortunately, the NYC radar was down all night, so I couldn’t post it below. This happens from time to time, and should be back online by tonight (if not already).
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
Migration was moderate to heavy at times last night, but appeared to slow down in the early morning hours. It’s hard to tell, really, where birds were headed after 2am, since some strobing was evident in the radar images after that point. Either way, the general trend was more SW->NE than two nights ago, suggesting that less birds will have been pushed to the SE coast than yesterday (Cape May was great, by the way). More thrushes moved through, as was evident during my few minutes of nocturnal listening around 10:30pm, but I haven’t checked the entire recording to see how it compares with the night before.
Given no precipitation or opposing winds to shut down migration, expect the best locations today to be the tried-and-true migrant traps. Sandy Hook is a great choice, as the local buoy there is reading west winds at 3kts. I expect to hear about Mourning warblers feeding in the open grass today… what say you Scott? Garret Mountain should see some replacement today, and the northern Delaware Bay should too. Today kicks off the official Spring Weekend in Cape May, and I think anyone getting out to the weekend events will definitely get a taste of what makes this place so irresistible to birders. Okay, I’m off to see what’s around and will report back soon, so please make sure you stop back and give us an update on your day too!
Good Birding
David
One response to “More birds into and out-of the Mid-Atlantic”
Spent 4 hours this AM at Sandy Hook. Although there was evidence of migration e.g. the bird bander had 10 Canada warblers, early morning numbers of birds were light overall. We had 14sp. of warbler and could not find the Mourning warbler that had escaped from the banders mist net. We had fine views of a Gray Cheeked Thrush and there were good numbers of Northern Waterthrush around. What was also quite evident was that a lot of the warblers were females. That end of season transition is coming all too soon.