By “wheel”, of course, I mean that pesky low.
Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
The low remains parked over the mid-Atlantic and parts of the northeast, bringing a counter-clockwise vortex of wind and rain, and precluding any significant migration from punching down into the region. It appears that the low actually pushed far enough to the west yesterday evening to allow a little backdoor migration over New Jersey. Both the DIX and DOX radars show light movement in a general NW->SE direction throughout last night, suggesting that we will see a small morning flight at the Higbee Dike in Cape May today. Unfortunately little in the way of new arrivals could be detected entering northern NJ, so most of the state will have to wait before experiencing any major influx of new birds. Old birds, though, are plentiful around the state and the lack of migration means that many of them will still be around and making short-distance hops into optimal foraging habitat. This would be a good time to check your local patch for such birds.
On the horizon we have some good migration weather shaping up. Tonight we may see another small push through the region, but by Thursday night the pesky low will have moved up into Maine and we should get the next big push of migrants. Friday and Saturday nights are looking prime for successive late-fall migration events, just in time for the Big Sit on 10.10.2010! Stay tuned.
Good Birding
David
2 responses to “Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin’”
I hit the NP dredge spoils in Gloucester County, NJ for a couple hours to see what was around. A baseline for when the next front comes through. I was expecting about the same birds as Doug and I had on Sunday. With less numbers. Well…. I wish I could predict this! Birds did move Sunday night – Monday morning, so maybe that explains this. Plus all that wind on Sunday, maybe we missed stuff hunkered low.
3 EASTERN PHOEBES
16 BLUE JAYS
1 BROWN CREEPER
1 GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET
2 RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS
10 ROBINS
8 GRAY CATBIRDS – I am starting to count these to see if they move on and new come in.
5 CEDAR WAXWINGS
1 PARULA
4 MAGNOLIA WARBLERS
5 COMMON YELLOWTHROATS
3 INDIGO BUNTINGS
2 male EASTERN TOWHEES
4 SONG SPARROWS
4 SWAMP SPARROWS
50 or so WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS
3 JUNCOS
I walked the same route that we walked on Sunday.
Dude. Thanks for the Journey flashback. Song’s going to be stuck in my head for the next hour.
I love how 80% of the species listed in Sandra Keller’s post above would send those of us at Cape Florida, Miami, into paroxysms of rare bird exctasy and banding lifers.