As the cold front cleared the east coast early yesterday morning, you could feel migration in the air. Thousands of dragonflies around Cape May yesterday evening confirmed the favorable conditions, and once the lights went out last night the radar lit up with another southbound guild: birds. 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.
The regional composite does a good job showing the extent of migration across the northeastern US and mid-Atlantic. Many birds were concentrated along the coast due to both the northwest winds and the ‘bottleneck’ of migration-ready birds across New England. Looking specifically at the NYC, NJ and DE radars we can see that migration was heavily directional from NW->SE through northern New Jersey, and then turned more N->S (and in the very southern reaches, NE->SW) as the winds became less of a factor. This will definitely influence the number of birds seen at coastal hotspots this morning.
Given the above, and the apparent number of birds launching off of Long Island, NY last night, expect coastal location to be the best bets today with Sandy Hook and Cape May being good choices for New Jersey. Inland sites in southern NJ, though, should be good (to better-than-good) today as well, as the trajectory of migration did direct birds along the northern Delaware Bay shoreline. It’s still early in the season, so densities should remain on the lower end- but diversity could be quite high at migrant traps this morning. Okay- I’m out to ground-truth! Please stop back and let us know what you see out there.
Good Birding
David
7 responses to “Birds over the eastern US”
Great flight at the Higbee dike this morning! High densities of EAKI, CEDW, AMRE BAOR, OROR, and BGGN and great warbler diversity. There’s nothing quite like having warblers strafing your face and weaving between your legs… and it’s only August 23rd!
Here in Kunkletown, PA, the nocturnal flight was impressive this morning with 400+ Veery calls within fifteen minutes. Also heard a few Swainson’s and Hermit Thrushes and a N. Waterthrush. Birding was also quite good after sunrise. Good movement of Eastern Kingbirds, Cedar Waxwings, and swallows overhead. Also a few migrants in the trees including gnatcatchers, and Prairie, Magnolia, and Nashville Warblers.
Liberty SP this morning had decent numbers and diversity of migrants:
Kingbirds, BG Gnats, YB Fly, and a dozen species of warblers.
Birds on the sidewalk of Jersey City always an indication of a strong flight!
Simon
An impressive number of birds in the early a.m. in my local patch in Washington Valley, Morris Township, Morris County – an obvious influx of migrants. BGGN and AMRE were the most numerous – a variety of warblers (CSWA, BAWW, BWWA) and a few vireos (YTVI mostly) also present.
I didn’t start until 8:10AM or so down in Cumberland County. The flight
was over by then, but certain species were still quite numerous – here are
some combined numbers from a few different spots.
20 plus GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHERS
30 plus EASTERN KINGBIRDS
Just a few CEDAR WAXWINGS!
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS – everywhere.
6 CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLERS
BLACK and WHITE WARBLERS – a lot.
REDSTARTS – abundant.
No Orioles either!
Many other warblers – but in ones and twos.
Birded Sandy Hook this morning and it was a distinct disappointment. There was very little variety and quantity of landbirds. From the above comments it would appear that most birds were inland or at other coastal areas but certainly not the Hook. 7 species of warbler tallied and mostly of the Hook breeders like Black and white and redstart. The big show was the conga lines of swallows with the most being tree swallows. They looked like insects swarming at times. 2 Baird’s SP, 1 Western SP and 1 White-Rumped Sp were the standouts in shorebird migrants.
Thanks everyone for posting! Wendy, it sounds like the birds were going straight over The Hook. Interesting.