I’ll keep this brief. MORE BIRDS INTO THE MID-ATLANTIC! 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.
Where strong northwest winds pushed the last flight to the Atlantic coast, light and variable winds turned northeast this morning to set off another huge flight on a more inland path. Today’s picks for birding locations will be inland hotspots such as Chimney Rock and the N.P. Dredge Spoils, with Cape May showing the best potential for a large Peregrine flight (Peregrines migrate along the coast and even offshore, so northeast winds will push them inland over the coast).
Interestingly, we had a large and early Yellow-rump flight yesterday over Cape May. The source of these birds was clearly more western, given the heavy migration out of the Great Lakes region two nights ago. Last night the Northeast opened up and we saw widespread migration from Caribou, Maine all the way down the east coast. I wonder how this more eastern drainage pattern will influence the diversity of birds around today… let’s find out!!
Thanks to everyone who reported from yesterday- your accounts really help us understand how to interpret the radar. Anyone out and about today is encouraged to stop back and let us know what you saw.
Good Birding
David
5 responses to “Wash, rinse, repeat. The flight goes inland”
Big push of Yellow-rumped Warblers into central PA (State College) last night, as well as higher numbers of White-throated, White-crowned and Swamp Sparrows.
Sunday morning – a friend and I hit the dredges spoils in National Park first. Then Wheelabrator Refuge – which is a couple miles north along the Delaware River. Gloucester County. 9:00AM start time because of my work. Most of this is from the dredge spoils. Very strong NE winds, which did keep birds hunkered down. I was hoping to get to the dredge spoils on Sat. just for an hour to get a feel for what was around, but couldn’t. I assume most of this stuff came in this morning, but could be wrong.
2 NORTHERN FLICKERS
4 EASTERN PHOEBES – all at Wheelabrator.
26 BLUE JAYS
2 RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS
50 or so ROBINS – we were estimating these.
7 CEDAR WAXWINGS
3 NORTHERN PARULAS
1 MAGNOLIA WARBLER
33 YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS
1 PALM WARBLER – very strange – just one!
2 INDIGO BUNTINGS
2 EASTERN TOWHEES
10 SONG SPARROWS – some migrants here?
16 WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS
AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES – say 30, but an estimate.
A normal late fall migrant day around here. Especially this year. Numbers of a few species.
Hi Dave
No birds, all the birds we had yestrday flew the coupe, we looked in all the right places and saw not a single warbler or any of the others we saw yesterday.
Hawk flight was good at wild cat ridge hawk watch
Not much in the way of passerine migrants at Chimney Rock today – no new birds, and most of yesterday’s gang had gone.
An outstanding Hawk flight today however with 561 hawks counted on a steady NE wind.
Had a decent morning in eastern PA.
Some highlights were the good numbers of SWTH and GCTH flight calls. Some warblers are still around including BTBW, BTNW, BLPW, TEWA, YRWA, and PAWA.
33+ Purple Finches
400+ Blue Jays in a few hours
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers
Dark-eyed Juncos
Swamp, White-throated, White-crowned Sparrows arrived.