Blurry-eyed from walking the streets of Cape May listening to nocturnal flight calls and trying to get out the door this morning, 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.
Things began to fall into place a night earlier than expected as upper-level winds across most of the country turned light WSW to NW. You can see from the regional composite that the Northeastern US was the only area still under the strong influence of southwest winds, and therefore showed little to no sign of migration. Otherwise, though, migration was good and heavy and birds were being pushed hard to the east coast, especially over New Jersey. The winds over the Garden State last night were less predictive of a big flight unless you consider the date (almost October!) and the fact that so many birds had been waiting to migrate. Surface winds over Cape May throughout the night were steady and out of the WSW, turning more southerly as this morning progressed. We know birds will move on light southerlies, and with the winds aloft becoming more and more favorable, birds were high and heading southeast last night. Looking at the Dover radar you can see the change in travel direction throughout the night- with strong NW->SE flight most of the night, turning N->S into the early morning hours, and finally coming around to E->W at 5:00am as birds dropped out of the sky. Interestingly this E->W trajectory is an artifact of birds dropping out of the radar, since the target direction relative to the radar turns clockwise as the birds and their NW->SE influence become less and less; as of this morning, once most birds have landed, the target direction reflects the wind direction and speed- light and from the south. Looking at the NYC radar, not much was happening last night as the winds appeared to be just a little to strong out of the SW. It looks like a small push of birds were evident early this morning, but nothing compared to what’s in store for this weekend.
Two words: Cape May. These are the conditions that make it shine, and the weekend weather forecast is only going to get better for the Point at the end of the Parkway. Northwest winds at all altitudes are forecast to spread throughout the region and into the Northeastern US, persisting through early next week; each night bringing another influx into the region with Cape May as the concentration point.
Good Birding
David
4 responses to “Finally some cooperative weather! (UPDATE)”
Well, the Greenwald Park area in Cherry Hill was super this morning! Started out a bit slow numbers wise, but then I changed locations and wow. Stop was moving last night and
stopped over here in Camden County – the Cooper River Park system. No Catharus thrushes though. Migrants:
CATBIRDS – everywhere.
NORTHERN FLICKER – 3
EASTERN PHOEBES – 5
BLUE JAYS – many
WINTER WREN – 1
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET – 3
ROBINS – many
PHILA. VIREO – 1
PARULA – 1
MAGNOLIA WARBLER – 2
BLACK-THROATED BLUE – 2
YELLOW-RUMPED – 20 or so.
PALM WARBLER – 5
BLACKPOLL – 1
BLACK and WHITES – 3
NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH – 5
CONNECTICUT WARBLER – 3
COMMON YELLOWTHROAT – 2
ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK – 1
WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS – 6
GOLDFINCHES – say 30.
BOBOLINKS – overhead.
Went to Sandy Hook this morning and things were surprisingly slow. There appeared to be a movement of robins and flickers. There was no quantity but some quality around.
There was a very cooperative Lark Sparrow, 3 Lincoln’s Sparrows, 1 Black-Billed and 2 Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Peregrine Falcon, Sharp Shinned Hawk, 1 Nashville, 3 Common YT
1 Black and White,1 Yellow-Breasted Chat, 1 Red Eyed Vireo, 1 Phila.Vireo, Stilt SP, imm. Pectoral SP . It could have been much worse but it could have been better. The buoy off of the Hook indicated that winds went SW from WNW at 4:15AM. Maybe this affected the flight for us today.
Hopefully things will improve after the next rain event which is supposed to happen tomorrow.
That front that was supposed to dissipate and be overcome by a Canadian front with shoulders ’tain’t happenin’ David. Heavy rains in Central NJ as I write. That low is spinning like a top and going nowhere fast. Not wasting an hour and a half trip to the Cape. I may be wrong, and a frontal wave from the north may sidestep itself into South Jersey, but North Jersey/Southern NY are expecting heavy showers all through the night. I’ll defer to Sunday where hopefully this flotsam clears out- what an abysmal weather pattern
Yeah- you’re right about the stinking low. Nothing is coming in from New England, but some birds are moving into NW NJ from NY state (as per the Albany and Binghamton radars). Birds are moving into S. Jersey from N. Jersey, under the rain but the NW winds have failed to build in so far because of this backed up front. It’s pretty ugly. Tom Johnson reports 15-20 flight calls per minute from Cape May right now, under a light rain. I’d agree that it’s looking much better for later in the weekend, early next week at this point… but there will be new birds around tomorrow morning… just not the masses we were hoping for based on the weather forecast!