What started off as a slow August has really ramped up to full speed heading into September. Last night was the (wait, I need to go count…) seventh(!) consecutive night of migration over the region, with the last three being moderate to heavy in density. 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.
In terms of magnitude, last night was clearly not as heavy as the last two. The upper-level winds which had been northwesterly for several nights, had now gone slack, westerly, or even south (although very light). Still, in most cases winds appear to have been light enough and the limiting factor last night was probably the availability of migration-ready birds.
Looking at the individual radars we can see a general N->S flight over New Jersey last night, with a touch of west wind probably pushing birds a tad to the coast. Even so, I would expect most migrants to be well dispersed across the landscape today since the westerly component was quite light, and no significant portion of birds appeared to be over water throughout the night and into the morning. As it has for the last two mornings, the Sandy Hook buoy is reading west winds again! What a perfect late-August they’re having out on The Hook. Things should be birdy there today as well. Again, tried-and-true fall hotspots will be the best bet for today, with the Higbee dike probably going to produce another nice flight.
Thanks again to everyone for posting their observations. it’s great to be able to compare the local variation across NJ and the mid-Atlantic as a whole. Please keep ’em coming!
Good Birding
David
3 responses to “High pressure keeps the gate open another night”
Similar numbers of birds to yesterday in the Great Swamp again this morning, though a different mix, so certainly some movement.
Eleven sp. warblers including a Blackburnian, a Nashville, several BT blues and a BT Green. A YB Cuckoo, a Scarlet Tanager, a couple of RB Grosbeaks, and an RB Nuthatch to go with the Vireos and Flycatchers.
Migrant Hawks also in evidence today, with Sharpie, Kestrel, a Harrier and an Osprey.
I’m very fortunate to have the GSNWR right on my doorstep.
after two reasonably active days of migration at Hutcheson Memorial Forest, this morning was totally dead…a single American Redstart was all we could turn up!
Thanks for the post, Brian. HMF is such an interesting place. I’ve had some absolutely stellar days there; especially in spring, but also in fall. One of the things that I have noticed, though, is how quickly it can thin out. I used to refer it is as the ‘hoover effect’ down in Florida, where early in the season you would get these big flights and birds would just clear out without replacement until the next wave came through. I imagine it must have been something like that, where the birds moved out, and the new birds making their way south just had enough steam to keep going. Because HMF is in the Piedmont/Inner Coastal Plain, I think the dispersal across that region makes it so much less predictable. That said, you had some pretty consistent birding when you were at Duke, right? I wonder what it was like there on the same morning.