Southerly winds along the approaching cold front stymied any significant nocturnal migration over New Jersey and the extreme northeast coast last night. Lighter winds to our south and west did allow some birds to head out of NY and the southern mid-Atlantic, but overall the densities were low compared to what they will be tonight. Here’s the radar from 7:30pm last night through 5:00am this morning.

Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.

Well, it looks like I gave away the whole store in the lead paragraph, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. The vast majority of targets on the NY, NJ and DE radars were moving S->N with the prevailing southerly winds, suggesting that these were something other than birds (pollen, bugs, etc.). A small minority of targets did appear to be moving southward, mostly at higher elevations, indicating that some birds either just don’t need to, or just don’t want to wait.

Today we’ll see the cold front finally make its way across the region and push offshore by tonight. Winds will turn northwesterly this evening, and eventually northerly by morning, bringing many birds into the mid-Atlantic by tomorrow. Northwest winds aloft will mean coastal migrant traps will be full of birds tomorrow morning and I’m putting my money on Cape May for both diversity and density. On Friday night expect the winds to take a more northeasterly turn moving the flight inland and favoring migrant traps along the interior ridges and along the Delaware River for Saturday morning.

Good Birding

David