National Overview
There’s a lot of action going on right now as a series of low pressure systems and associated fronts march across the U.S. Precipitation in the west seems to be restricting migration for the time being, while southerly flow up the middle of the country has opened the floodgates for Trans-Gulf and Circum-Gulf migrants. This was especially true for Texas and Louisiana which have both seen heavy migration over the last 2-3 days/nights. The Upper Midwest is still under a mix of calm upper-air winds turning northerly at the surface, which resulted in an attenuated migration event last night, and the Northeast will have to wait for high pressure to clear the region before they see a significant movement again. The Southeast was cranking last night as well, and the Mid Atlantic saw some new birds enter the system wherever precipitation hadn’t been too heavy. Speaking of heavy precipitation, birders from Kentucky to the Carolinas should be checking their local patches if they experienced precipitation between midnight and 2am this morning as birds were clearly bumping up against that frontal boundary as they pushed north.
Below are the radar loops from sunset last night through 5:00am (central time) this morning
Since I will be publishing “as I go” each morning you may see some incomplete posts throughout the early morning hours. Don’t worry- it’s coming!
Mid Atlantic
Delaware & New Jersey
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
Light to moderate migration was apparent across the Mid Atlantic last night as upper level winds were light out of the SW and surface winds out of the SE. Most birds passing over NJ were doing so on a SSW->NNE trajectory putting the vast majority of them along the NJ Turnpike corridor. Expect the best conditions today to be inland migrant traps including those along the Delaware River and Garret Mountain. Birds will be dispersed across the landscape today- but given the volume of birds in the system you should do pretty well at just about any spring migrant trap away from the coast. Good Birding!
Upper Midwest
Iowa & Illinois
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
North winds coming down from Minnesota put the breaks on migration across western WI and IA last night. This was evident on the Davenport radar which shows a moderate flight early in the night getting shut down by 1:00am. Farther east the winds were lighter, and while northerly still, had much less of an effect. Chicago showed a moderate to heavy flight of birds heading NW into WI last night which continued into the early morning. You can actually see birds being concentrated along the Lake Michigan shoreline as NW winds began to build. I would think the Chicago lake shore would produce some FOS birds this morning and in general be a good place to bird today.
Wisconsin
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
If you haven’t already, read the above blurb about IA and IL as the same rules apply to WI. Northwest winds built in early over western WI which effectively shut things down early over La Crosse. Milwaukee was another story with birds heading NE early in the night and then being pushed to the lake shore by early morning. Concentration along the lake shore didn’t appear to be as strong as Chicago, but birders in southern Milwaukee should consider checking migrant traps near the lake first thing this morning. Birders on the Door Peninsula, too, should see new birds at their favorite spring haunts. Unfortunately the north winds appear to have stifled any significant new movement into northern Wisconsin, so expect little change in density and diversity much beyond the middle of the state.
As always, woodcreeper.com depends on YOU to report your sightings and be our ‘eyes on the ground’, so please come back and give us an idea of how we’re doing predicting birding conditions in your neck of the woods.
For migration updates in other regions check-
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – The Northwoods BIRDAR by Max Henschell <- NEW!
New England – Tom Auer’s blog
Florida/SE – Badbirdz Reloaded by Angel and Mariel Abreu
PA/Ohio Valley – Nemesis Bird by Drew Weber
NW Ohio – Birding the Crane Creek by Kenn Kaufman
Arizona – Words About Birds by Tim Schreckengost <- NEW!
Pac NW – Birds Over Portland by Greg Haworth
Continental US – eBird BirdCast Forecast & Report by Team eBird
3 responses to “Getting deep into migration”
I probably wasn’t out as early as I should have been (it was still raining this morning), but here in east-central KY there wasn’t much new. A huge volume of prairie warblers seems to have been dumped on us, though.
Marissa- thanks for the feedback! “A huge volume of prairie warblers” does seem significant though! It will be interesting to see what else shows up throughout the day. About what time did the rain start near you?
Birds away from the coast, I would assume that to be the case. Opened up the nets at Sandy Hook this morning, just prior to 6am (late for me). First birds I heard back in the lanes were wood thrush and ovenbird (both fos for me, and made me hopeful), but after having the nets open for 4 hours, only 2 white-throated sparrows found the nets. Trina Andersen and I found one small patch of birds north of the scout camp, numerous white-throats and chipping sparrows, 5-6 indigo buntings (good year for them so far), 6 palms, 2 ruby crowned kinglets, 4-5 blue-headed vireo, 1 white-eyed vireo, 1 b&w warbler…lots of myrts ovehead. Most of these birds were moving east to west, seemingly getting ready to move west over the shrewsbury towards the mainland. Outside of this pocket of birds, we had trouble finding other migrants. Weekend isn’t looking good for the coast….tuesday perhaps!!!! cheers.