Only 5 more days to take the woodcreeper/badbirdz-reloaded, online survey! To those of you who took it yesterday, thanks! It’s quick, painless, and will really help me improve the site, so please take 30 seconds to click a couple of buttons. 🙂
Thanks in advance -David

Perfect migration condition last night lead to the largest push of nocturnal migrants into the region this season. Here’s the radar from 7:00pm last night through 5:00am this morning.

Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.

At sunset last night the surface winds were steady out of the NNW, while winds aloft were much stronger (15-20kts) out of the west. This set up a tail/side wind which heavily favored migration but which also cause many birds to be pushed to the coast and over water (this was most dramatic on the NYC radar (not shown) where birds were flying due south over Long Island and out into the Atlantic for several hours, before turning west as the winds shifted later in the evening/early morning).

Over the course of the night both the upper-level and surface winds turned more northerly, and in some cases even turned northeasterly. If you look at the velocity images you can really see the change in trajectory as birds migrate throughout the night and early morning. The initial image shows a W–>E pattern, consistent with the wind profile just before sunset. As birds enter the radar the direction shifts immediately to NW–>SE, and then N–>S, at which point birds are negotiating between the northerly tailwind at lower altitude and the strong westerly crosswinds at higher elevations. Eventually the trajectory turns more NE–>SW as birds appear to compensate for their easterly offset just before daybreak.

This, of course, begs the question of where to go birding. I know I sound like a broken record, but given the lack of precipitation or adverse weather conditions to cause localized fallouts, the best locations this morning will be tried-and-true fall migrant hotspots. Cape May is an obvious choice, as is Sandy Hook given the number of birds obviously displaced over water this morning. That said, offshore buoys indicate easterly flow near Sandy Hook which usually doesn’t bode well for that location (although I think it should be excellent for the first few hours of the day, at least). Cape May should be excellent, but the northeast winds that are evidently blowing along the coast could push birds inland and favor the Delaware Bayshore over more traditional spots such as the dike at Higbee’s. This could actually prove the best of both worlds, as coastal locations should see heavy bird activity with many birds making landfall this morning, while more inland locations such as Chimney Rock and the Delaware River floodplain could also see a nice influx of new birds. Okay, now it’s up to you to determine what it’s really like out there. Please come on back and let us know how it was.

Good Birding

David

P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org

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