Southerly winds prevailed over Pennsylvania and central and western New York last night, preventing any migration on the interior eastern flyway. Fortunately for those more coastal states, the northerly winds along the extreme east coast made for some heavy migration right along the shoreline. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through sunrise this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour for reflectivity and velocity, and every hour for the regional composite. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
You can really see what I’m talking about if you check the regional composite. There’s virtually no signal (and I’d argue what signal there is is likely just noise) on the interior radars, but look at the coastal sites go! If you look at the velocity, most movement is from north to south, suggesting birds. There is some movement from east to west, which is probably something other than birds being carried along in the prevailing easterlies that built in early this morning, or maybe the signal is bird-related, as those birds who got blown off course two nights ago are “righting themselves”? The latter is purely speculative of course. The real problem, I’ve noticed, is the coarseness of this data- and how it makes it very hard to discern between different velocities which might shed light on the source of the signal…oh well, you get what you pay for (free internet weather data…which is still pretty darn sweet).
Frames are every 1/2 hour for reflectivity and velocity, and every hour for the regional composite. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
You can really see what I’m talking about if you check the regional composite. There’s virtually no signal (and I’d argue what signal there is is likely just noise) on the interior radars, but look at the coastal sites go! If you look at the velocity, most movement is from north to south, suggesting birds. There is some movement from east to west, which is probably something other than birds being carried along in the prevailing easterlies that built in early this morning, or maybe the signal is bird-related, as those birds who got blown off course two nights ago are “righting themselves”? The latter is purely speculative of course. The real problem, I’ve noticed, is the coarseness of this data- and how it makes it very hard to discern between different velocities which might shed light on the source of the signal…oh well, you get what you pay for (free internet weather data…which is still pretty darn sweet).
Anyway, migrant traps today. Coastal sites – especially Island Beach State Park, given the amount of activity on the central Jersey coast. Inland sites may be good too since easterlies definitely built in late early this morning.
Good Birding
David
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4 responses to “Migrants go coastal”
Celery Farm today–I’m slowly upping my warbler total–7 species today: Nashville and Palm new fall arrivals here; Blackpoll; Redstart; Ch-sided; 3+ yellowthroat, Heard N-Water; 5+ Hummers, BG Gnat, 2 flyover Bobolink; flyover Greaterlegs, several Purple Finch continue, 6+ KESTREL!; 3 Sharpies, several RB Grosbeak.
Morning Flight: 0-5 mph NE wind, clear conditions
Counter: Chris Brown
Red-eyed Vireo- 3
American Robin- 2
Northern Parula- 4
Yellow Warbler- 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler- 4
Black-throated Green Warbler- 2
Blackburnian Warbler- 1
“Baypoll” Warbler- 1
Black and White Warbler- 2
American Redstart- 13
Northern Waterthrush-9
Warbler sp.- 23
Indigo Bunting- 2
Bobolink- 22
Baltimore Oriole- 1
Total birds: 90
Notes: Pectoral Sandpiper, Cooper’s Hawk, Royal Terns.
I had a friend named Kyle down in Florida who liked to use the phrase, “Sometimes chicken; sometimes feathers”. I just loved it…because it summed up so much each time he used it. Well, today was one of those days. I saw the movement on the radar and based on the character, figured that birds would be concentrated on the coast…I still can’t figure out why it didn’t happen (although there were more birds inland yesterday, so it’s possible they made it in on the easterlies during the morning), but I do know that it DID NOT. Thanks again to Sam for posting the mini-morning flight data (the data is mega, the flight was mini). Also thanks to Glenn Mahler for sending me an email with his observations from Island Beach State Park. I’ve copied it below.
I had good numbers of redstarts, common yellowthroats, rose-breasted grosbeaks (although they breed out here) magnolia and prairie warblers around Somerset yesterday. More impressive were the numbers of Nashville (3) and Black-throated Green (many) warblers on Rutgers (Cook College) campus yesterday morning (reported by Julian Avery). I guess the birds did get blown inland!