A combination of wind direction and wind speed appears to have minimized the number of birds migrating over the northeast last night. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 6:00am this morning.

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

While the wind direction was relatively favorable across most of the Central and Eastern Flyways last night, strong northeasterly flow from the low pressure system over New England restricted the number of birds heading out over the northeastern US. Those birds that did migrate out of central and western New York, did so on a strong NE->SW trajectory, bringing them further inland into PA rather than into NJ. Migration was evident over New Jersey as well, although a similar NE->SW trajectory was also evident for most of the night. Some adjustment to N->S did occur later in the night, as winds subsided and turned more northerly.

For New Jersey, expect central hotspots to be favored this morning with less densities located along the east and west coasts. Given the bit of shift from west to east early this morning, I would expect so see some morning flight down at Higbee’s today. Here’s to a non-boring morning on the dike, Tom!

Good Birding

David