In an attempt to get the radar posted as quickly as possible, I will be publishing “as I go” each morning. Therefore you may see some incomplete posts throughout the early morning hours (5-6am Central; 6-7am Eastern Time). We’ll test out this method for a few weeks and see how well it works… your feedback, of course, is most welcome!

 

National Overview

A series of low pressure systems marched across the Midwest and Ohio Valley yesterday, reaching the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic by this morning. The organization of these cells made for a heterogeneous mix of migration conditions, resulting in light to moderate levels of migration within and around bands of precipitation. Looking at the snapshot from late last night you can see migration to the along the east sides of both major bands of precipitation (western Ohio, PA, NY, parts of NJ and some over the eastern Carolinas). The Gulf Coast continues to crank out birds as does Texas. The Central U.S. was relatively quiet as conditions have deteriorated a bit; most notable is that the upper-level winds are a mix between NE and NW.

Below are the radar loops from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning

New Jersey (Mid-Atlantic)

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

Migration over the Mid-Atlantic was light, especially to the east. Both NJ radars indicate birds tracked the western route along the Delaware River and the bulk of this flight remained over Pennsylvania and Western New York anyway. Expect few new birds today in terms of concentrations of migrants, although checking up on southern breeders could produce some early records given the volume of birds that have been moving up into the region lately.

Wisconsin (Upper Midwest)

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

All’s quiet on the (Mid)western front. Neither the La Crosse nor the Milwaukee radars indicated anything significant in terms of migration last night. Conditions have turned less favorable with the switch in upper-level winds and birds are in no particular hurry to move north under sub-optimal weather. Besides, for any birds that are here, the trees are full of food right now… that’s a potentially bad thing in the long run, of course (the trees are saying “it’s May!” while the birds are saying “but it’s still March…”). Lots of short-distance and early migrants are around right now so birding conditions are actually quite good. Juncos, G.C. Kinglets (and a few R.C. too), some early sparrows (several reports of Savannah, Chipping, Swamp, more Song, etc.), Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, blackbirds continue to move through, etc. Get out there and bird! (and of course, come back and tell us what you saw 🙂 ).

Oh, and please don’t forget to take our mini-poll if you haven’t already:

Good Birding

David