Birds Birds Birds. That’s the story. 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.
The floodgates clearly opened wide last night, as southerly flow was evident all up and down the east coast, from northern Florida to central New Jersey. A weak stationary front marked the boundary between heavy migration (to the south of the front) and less heavy migration (to the north of it), although the later radar images indicate that birds clearly pushed through this layer and migrated into a northwesterly headwind. The velocity image clearly shows birds overshooting the coast of New Jersey this morning, despite the easterly winds at the surface. An explanation for this is probably the winds at migration altitude (~3000 feet) which remain strong and northwesterly at the time of this post. Coastal areas (while they may show a decrease in birds later today) will see birds reorienting to the coast early this morning, and therefore should be good at first light.
It appeared that the densest migration in southern Jersey was along the Delaware Bay shore, with less (although still heavy) movement extending to Cape May. Central Jersey showed very heavy influx and for that I would expect Garret Mountain to pick up a good number of migrants throughout the morning. I still think Sandy Hook will be interesting first thing this morning given the apparent overshoots on the radar… hopefully we can get a report from the migration counter sometime later today.
Really, the entire state received new birds today, especially from central Jersey southward, and therefore all spring migrant traps in these areas should be birded before the weather gets too bad (heavy rain and t-storms in the forecast). The cacophony of birdsong out my window is becoming deafening… nothing new yet, but many robins stealing the early show… now to go ground-truth!
Good Birding
David
P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org
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6 responses to “Huge migration over Jersey”
Low quantity but nice quality thi morning at the Celery Farm;
-Record early (by 15 days!) Bank Swallow
-4 Rough-winged Swallows; 1 Barn
-1st Palm Warbler and Savannah Sparrow
-YB Sapsucker–my first ever at CF in spring
-Snipe; Killdeer, etc
49+ species reported today
Duke Farms was moderately birdy. Look at S. Jersey reports it definitely seems like the Delaware Bayshore was where the action was.
-dozen + Pine Warblers
-~10 Palms
-4 sapsuckers
-quite a few herms
-white throats, rumps, etc.
New birds at my local patch in Highland Park this morning:
– 3 Northern Rough-winged Swallows
– 1 Tree Swallow
– 3 Savannah Sparrows
There were also a lot of Northern Flickers compared to the past few weeks.
Thanks for the posts, everyone.
There were many birds around Somerset, but diversity was similar to previous days. The highlight was my FOS EASTERN TOWHEE (2) at HMF (hmf.rutgers.edu).
Here’s the list from my 1-hour morning “dog walk”
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Blue Jay
Brown-headed Cowbird Many
Carolina Chickadee * singing CACH song- but we’re clearly in the hybrid zone
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird – Increased in numbers today
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Towhee – 2 males – FOS
Field Sparrow – Many
Golden-crowned Kinglet – Many
Greater Shearwater
Mourning Dove
Northern Flicker
Northern Mockingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Song Sparrow – less than the last two days
Tufted Titmouse
White-throated Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler Many, singing
Number of Species: 20
I had RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES at Winslow
WMA. I don’t know whether they wintered there.
Plus one SAPSUCKER. That was my first in awhile. There were so many PINE WARBLERS
around that someone suggested maybe they came through last night. I don’t know. This isn’t a coastal migrant area, so I didn’t have common species like Yellow-rumped Warbler or Palm for this time of year.
Had a few migrant birds in the wet woods behind our house today.
Palm Warbler- 2
Brown Creeper- 1
Hermit Thrush- 1
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet- 1
Golden-Crowned Kinglet- 1
Easter Phoebe- 2
still have a steady number of juncos and white throated sparrows as well as 2 RB Nuthatches coming to our feeders.