That was the text I received late last night.

My reply: “because they can only wait so long”.

Here’s the regional composite from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning:

What happened last night was that winds over the northeast were light enough (although still out of the south) to give some birds the green light to head south. You can see the large low pressure system marching into the Mid-Atlantic from the south, which eventually shut things down early. The shutting down was obvious over New Jersey, where you can see the reflectivity simply disappear just after 11:00pm.

Movement was from the NE->SW last night, so expect places like the NP Dredge Spoils to be hopping today, as well as any locations along the N. Delaware Bay. Cape May will see some new birds, but the bulk will have set down to the west of the peninsula (although with the report of a (most likely) Brown Booby and solid sighting of a Long-billed Curlew yesterday, Cape May will be a good places to be just in terms of possibly finding interesting birds). These conditions can often produce good birding in unpredictable places, since birds were initially shut down by wind, not rain (it’s easier to see where rain shuts birds down). So check your local patch before making any long trip out of town to go birding.

The southerly winds and heavy rain forecast for tonight will shut down migration entirely across the region, but only for a night. Tomorrow night northwest winds will build in over New York State and Pennsylvania, and the real fun will begin. Depending on when the weather clears out of here we may see an early push into New Jersey on Friday morning. If not, we’ll most likely see a very big influx of birds on Friday and Saturday nights, making Saturday and Sunday morning excellent days to be in the field.

Good Birding!

David