The Garden State experienced a good influx of birds, as winds turned southwesterly late last night.
Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:30am 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.
Similar to yesterday, migration was heaviest over the interior Mid-Atlantic states, while light to moderate pulses were detected entering New Jersey from the southwest and central parts of the state. The composite image does a good job of putting it all into perspective. Check out the strong signals over Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, compared to those over New Jersey.
Still, there was a good push of migrants into the state, with an additional pulse of birds by late morning into the southern half (something we didn’t see last night). New birds should be present at most locations today, with the densest aggregations in the interior (such as at Garret Mountain). I’m heading for Sandy Hook based on the west winds, but migration there did appear to be light.
Hopefully the westerlies will blow some raptors, Rough-wing Swallows, or an early bunting out to The Hook!
Good Birding
David
P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org
Please don’t forget to become a member of the Woodcreeper/Badbirdz flock today. Membership has its privileges, so read the Become a Member post to find out more.
4 responses to “Migration over Jerze”
38 species at CF this morning. Nothing new for the year–and surprisingly no warblers. Highlighs incl. my first SEEN VA Rail of the year, 2 PB Grebes, 1 Snipe, 5 Phoebe, a heard only singing RC Kinglet, and my latest ever Tree Sparrow. No Ibis seen today.
Yesterday’s southerly flow produced an adult Bald Eagle and a First of year Greater Yellowlegs in the evening.
Sandy Hook
Time: 8:45am – 12:45pm
Locations: K Lot / Battery → Locust Grove → The Bowl → Raccoon Alley/ Road to Nowhere → Horseshoe Cove
Participants: Rutgers University Ornithology class
Notes: Winds last night started at E, changed to S and SW during peak migration, and ended at W at daybreak. The radar indicated that birds were clearly moving over Sandy Hook at 5:30am, and upon arrival at 8:45 the fog was very thick, leading to many birds overshooting the coast and making landfall in the early morning. We saw flocks of dozens to over one hundred blackbirds (Red-winged mixed with Common Grackles) and warblers (almost all Yellow-rumped) coming in off the ocean between 8:45 and 10:45am.
Bird diversity consisted mostly of typical early April species; with very large numbers (100+) of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS (many of which were both singing and coming into specky breeding plumage) GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS, and SONG SPARROWS, dozens of EASTERN PHOEBES, about a dozen NORTHERN FLICKERS, our FOS E. PALM WARBLERS (4), RUBY CROWNED KINGLET (1), BARN SWALLOW (1), N. ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW (1), SAVANNAH SPARROW (1), and GREAT EGRET (1).
Here’s our complete day list:
Brant
Canada Goose
Mallard
Red-breasted Merganser Many displaying in Horseshoe Cove
Common Loon
Northern Gannet
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Turkey Vulture
Osprey Extra-pair copulation!
Red-tailed Hawk
Killdeer
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe Dozens
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet 100’s
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Field Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow 100+
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird 100’s
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow
Number of Species: 53
Good Birding
David
Lots of singing sparrows at Negri-Nepote on 4/10 am. Swampies were particularly loud, also field, song, white-throats. No chippies yet.
typical apr south carolina…
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