Low pressure over the Northeast and a frontal boundary dipping down into the Mid-Atlantic appear to have kept any major migration from occurring over the region last night. 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.

 

South winds over the southern US triggered heavy migration, but only for about one-state’s-worth of distance before heavy precipitation and opposing winds caused birds to land. This same frontal boundary stretched eastward from Texas to Alabama, and then northeast across the Delmarva Peninsula. Therefore migration along the east coast was limited as well to the extreme coastal region bounded by the front. In the Mid-Atlantic this translated to a moderate flight over coastal North Carolina and Virginia, with only light migration apparent across the Delmarva, New Jersey and eastern New York.

Looking at these radars specifically, you can see that migration began on WSW winds with birds being pushed to the coast, and tapered off well before sunrise as winds turned more northwesterly. While this pattern should cause some concentration of birds along the coast, the densities were such that I wouldn’t expect any major event of landbirds returning to shore after being blown out to sea. Spring hotspots should see some new birds today while elsewhere I would expect most birds are dispersed across the landscape.

Good Birding

David