Not much going on last night in terms of nocturnal migration, as the conditions were less than favorable. That said, there was alot of noise on the radar which made it hard to interpret. Fall is weird; there are lots of other things in the air that can give false positive results and last night was no exception. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through sunrise this morning.
Frames are every hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
So just after sunset we see a signal appearing as growing concentric circles around the radar station…this is typical of birds taking to the sky and being picked up at growing distances (altitudes) from the radar station. By looking at the velocity image, though, you can see that much of this signal has no velocity associated with it, indicating that it’s not birds, but rather anomalous propagation (probably driven by a temperature inversion after sunset). There are some things moving across the radar though, but most appear to be moving from SW–>NE, counter to the expected movement of migrating landbirds. This is probably dust, pollen, or insects moving with the wind. Another interesting thing occurs just after sunrise, when a large signal from New Jersey moves offshore and to the NE, toward Long Island. Your guess is as good as mine…shore/wading-birds going off to feed? Insects? I have no idea…anyone hanging around the south shore of LI this morning?
This weekend we’ll be watching the cold front progress through our region and eventually move offshore, setting up for some heavy nocturnal migration. Stay tuned!
Good Birding!
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2 responses to “No (some!) migration last night”
hmmm…according to Sam Galick, there was a flight of Bobolinks at Higbee’s this morning…just goes to show you can’t get them all on the radar.
Yes contrary to the radar, there was an excellent flight of Bobolinks last night and this morning at the dike. Out for a 3 AM stroll, I heard 20 Bobolinks give their flight call in the 15 minutes I was walking. I also had 2 Am. Redstarts and a probable Yellow Warbler. The flight call is the first note in their more drawn out R2D2 song. It’s nice to hear the first note, and have your mind make up the rest of what the full song would be. Enjoyable for an early morning stroll through the dunes.
Upon arriving at the dike at Higbee’s this morning I was prepared for counting flocks of Bobolinks. And sure enough with the glowing light of the dawn sun I began to hear the call notes, and little groups of 3 to 7 Bobolinks would be flying. Soon those numbers grew to flock of 30…50… 66 birds was the largest flock I had and was one of the last of the morning.
In total I had counted 514 Bobolinks this morning. They outnumbered Red-winged Blackbirds by nearly 100 birds. Nothing like that dike to bring out hundreds of birds after ‘no migration!’
Good birding.