Light southwest winds last night, coupled with clear skies, made for some good migration weather over the Mid-Atlantic region. While not nearly as intense as the migration going on several states to our west, birds could still be seen entering from the Delmarva Peninsula and making their way into the Northeast via northeastern New Jersey. Here’s the radar from 6:00pm last night through 5:00am this morning.

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

The radar shows the typical spring migration pattern across the region, with birds sticking to a SSW->NNE trajectory, aided by the typical SW tailwind. This typical trajectory naturally favors sites along the northern Delaware Bay shore, inland locations such as Garret Mountain and the Meadowlands, and coastal sites situated in the northeastern corner such as Sandy Hook. Cape May, on the other hand, is noticeably outside of the densest part of this migration cloud, simply due to its geographical placement (but in the fall, the trajectory is reversed, and Cape May becomes the major hotspot on the East Coast).

Last night’s migration was light to moderate in intensity, so not much change is expected to be noticeable on the ground, although the densities coming up from the southeast are encouraging (you can see them on the regional composite). Any changes in species composition and density should be most evident at the sites I mentioned above, which lie closest along the path of densest migration. Migration is expected to ramp up each night over the weekend as a strong low pressure system pushes eastward.

Okay, now it’s time to squeeze in a few hours of birding before fatherly duties kick in!

Good Birding

David