News: Species on the Move

Spring migration is well underway for a number of species, and the tables below highlight species you can expect in your regions over the coming week!  Read more...

BirdCast returns with some species on the move discussions for spring 2020! Killdeer is a familiar and hardy shorebird with a generally high tolerance for human habitation and landscapes, and the earliest migrants of this species have been on the move in recent weeks.  Read more...

Global Big Day is nearly here, and Team BirdCast wishes all of you birding around the planet an exciting, safe, and diverse day! For those teams birding in the US, we have a special addition of Species on the Move ... Good luck to all!  Read more...

Global Big Day is almost here, and here's another Species on the Move that teams in Eastern Asia may hope to find!  Read more...

Migration is well under way across the globe, and Team BirdCast is highlighting a few species in interactive maps made with eBird data. Check out how the progression of migration for the group of species has changed over the last 30 days.  Read more...

BirdCast predicts medium to high migration traffic aloft over an extensive areas of the central US from Mexico to Canada this weekend. Let's take a look briefly at why we think this will happen, and what species will be on the move.  Read more...

In this short post we highlight tonight's migration forecast in the West. Conditions are favorable for movements from the Desert Southwest north and west along the Pacific Coast into Washington state.   Read more...

BirdCast tracks migration from many angles, including with interactive maps that can give us a bird’s-eye view of migration in progress. Check out arrivals of waves of Purple Martins.  Read more...

With regular arrivals of spring migrants occurring daily, or nearly so, throughout the US, Team BirdCast returns with species on the move spotlights. This week, we highlight some on-time, early and late arrivals in the BirdCast West region.   Read more...

We’ve created a new tool to update us as species advance through their arrivals in each region, using data from eBird. We assign each species to four possible categories: Not Yet Arrived, Arrival Beginning, Approaching Peak, or Peaking. Then, we look for transitions between categories to tell us how each species is progressing through these […]  Read more...

We've created a new tool to update us as species advance through their arrivals in each region. We assign each species to four possible categories, and we look for transitions between categories to tell us how each species is progressing through these stages. Most of the action is happening in the southeast, as we expect for this time of year. But this will not be true for long!  Read more...

On our 28 March arrival update, we highlighted the late arrival of Chimney Swifts into the US this spring. In the last several days, we’ve seen a big increase in eBird reports of swifts, and the 10-day delay we wrote about earlier seems to have evaporated!  Read more...

The last several days have seen significant movements of birds in the US. Here are the highlights: On March 20th, we predicted a big influx of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers: Scissor-tailed Flycatchers are poised for a big entrance in the next week #GulfCoast #migration pic.twitter.com/jfLfnIsQMs — Team BirdCast (@DrBirdCast) March 20, 2017 We can now report that […]  Read more...

Species currently on the move in the United States include: Louisiana Waterthrush Great Egret Ruby-throated Hummingbird Osprey Red-eyed Vireo Hooded Warbler Prothonotary Warbler  Read more...

Some seriously anomalous displays of displacement, entrainment, diversion, and irruption, highlighted the birding landscape of 2012. Of particular note was the unprecedented invasion of Razorbills in the southeastern US and the Gulf of Mexico. BirdCast spent some time chronicling these events and begins a discussion of whether 2015 might see a similar occurrence.  Read more...

American Robin is a sure sign of spring for many, whether you wait patiently for the first migrants to scamper across a lawn that is (finally) not icy or white (can you tell that parts of the eastern US are very ready for spring?) or eagerly anticipate the rambling and melodic caroling of a robin in your back yard. […]  Read more...

Team BirdCast spent some effort last year to discuss vagrancy in Purple Gallinules in late fall and winter (see this post). As a very short addendum to that story, we have been looking at the track record for vagrant gallinules so far this winter: several interesting records have already come to light including 1 from Morocco, […]  Read more...

This weekend’s species on the move highlights movements in the West. Several species are right on time in the West, following the last decade’s patterns of reporting. These include Spotted Sandpiper, Swainson’s Thrush, Yellow Warbler, Western Tanager, and Black-headed Grosbeak. Also of note was a suite of major coastal movements in southern California associated with the […]  Read more...

This week we highlight species on the move over the past weekend in the Southeastern US, including a number reported in frequencies substantially in advance of the 2004-2013 average (like Swainson’s and Wood Thrushes, Black-throated Blue and Cape May Warblers, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Scarlet Tanagers). Of course, not all species are moving in advance of the average […]  Read more...

This week’s species on the move discussion highlights some advanced arrivals gleaned from this past weekend’s eBird reports. Northern Parula is being reported with greater frequency than the 10-year average for this date in the Great Plains and Upper Midwest and Northeast. This is particularly true in the Great Plains, where a huge spike in […]  Read more...