News: Uncategorized

BirdCast is updating the previous migration alert for the Gulf Coast. This update is as of 5pm EDT 3 April 2014. Conditions are favorable for a moderate exodus of birds from Mexico and portions of northern Central America later tonight (Thursday 3 April). Note that conditions are not favorable for South American departures (will this mean […]  Read more...

In our first weekly forecast for spring 2014, BirdCast highlighted the potential for fallouts and concentration of migrants in the Florida peninsula: “By midweek conditions favorable for migrant arrivals and departures are limited to Florida North to the Carolinas; and birders in these areas should watch carefully for fallouts of early migrants where precipitation and […]  Read more...

In the past decades birders have become increasingly aware of rapid changes in the phenology of bird movements in parts of the United States, noting what species are early, when birds are late. The power of eBird for highlighting these patterns has increased dramatically, and for the first time we can start to quantify and […]  Read more...

Late last week Teams BirdCast and eBird posted a story about some recent winter movements. Here, we decided to look a bit more closely at what seemed to be some rather drastic departures this winter in the patterns of distributions of two species: White-winged Scoter and Red-necked Grebe. We focused our efforts on eBird data […]  Read more...

Winter is not necessarily a season of the year that we associate with bird migration. This is for good reason, as the epic movements of spring and fall are not usually underway and nowhere do we find the diversity in northern hemisphere temperate latitudes of migrants passing that we expect and experience during those seasons. […]  Read more...

In the wake of much discussion about atmospheric blocking in Fall 2012, Team BirdCast returns to the scene of the crime, so to speak. The Climate Prediction Center, among others, is forecasting a period of negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices in the coming weeks. These negative values correspond to building high pressure over Greenland […]  Read more...

A strong cold front has moved off the Atlantic coast after a week of more summer-like conditions. Friday night will see temperatures drop in many areas, with winds from the North and Northwest, perfect for moderate to heavy movements in many areas (and some locally very heavy movements). These large movements of birds will be […]  Read more...

With forecast conditions looking rather gloomy for observers watching at the Tribute in Light but rosy for avoiding any potential for hazardous conditions for migrating birds, Team BirdCast predicted local, light movements and perhaps tens of birds in the beams of light during the memorial during the night of 11-12 September 2013. The first migrating […]  Read more...

Last night’s flight is the Northeastern US was as underwhelming as previously forecast, and the hopes for slightly more favorable though still marginal conditions for birds to move during the night bore no fruit. Widely scattered light movements occurred in most areas of the Northeast, though many of these were probably dominated or masked by […]  Read more...

For those in the greater New York City metropolitan area, the coming nights bring the return of the Tribute in Light Memorial. The powerful, side-by-side beams of light aimed skyward are first and foremost a somber tribute to the lives lost on September 11th 2001; but they also provide a rare opportunity to see nocturnal […]  Read more...

Welcome back to the Fall 2013 edition of BirdCast! Many with an eye toward monitoring migration have been watching the slow transition from the breeding season into the earliest of the autumn’s movements since the beginning of July. Those with an eye to the coast (and wetlands in general) probably saw the first southbound shorebirds […]  Read more...

Team Sapsucker made North American birding history on 25 April 2013, recording 294 species in a single, midnight-to-midnight day. More details are available here, but, briefly, the Sapsuckers pulled off a near perfect big day run because of a unique combination of the team’s skills, excellent scouting from Tom Johnson, Andy Guthrie, and Matt Hafner, assistance […]  Read more...

As forecast last week on the BirdCast site, a strong frontal boundary is moving East across the US. The high resolution image below, which is very large (!), shows light to moderate movements of inbound trans-Gulf migrants off the Texas coast (uniform and stippled pattern of blues) and an approaching cold front with strong storms […]  Read more...

Back by semi-popular demand from Spring 2012, a basic primer on birding by radar . . . Since the first units were placed along the Gulf Coast in the 1950s, ornithologists and birders have become increasingly aware of the power of using radar as a tool for understanding bird migration. In addition to detecting and […]  Read more...

Last week, Team BirdCast forecast that conditions looked favorable for spring overshoot migrants to occur in areas far to the north of their expected seasonal range. Here, we provide some additional discussion and speculation for what actually transpired. After a frontal boundary swept across the Florida Peninsula, many birds were clearly grounded by unfavorable conditions. The […]  Read more...

Several weeks ago, Team BirdCast highlighted a set of conditions for spring overshoot migrants, or “slingshot” migrants, to occur substantially farther north of their intended and seasonally appropriate destinations. We see potential for such conditions over the coming 24-48 hours, as a cold front moves across the Florida Peninsula during a period when early southern […]  Read more...

Although we are still quite early in the season to discuss the potential for a “slingshot” event that might cause typically southern spring migrants to overshoot their intended destinations along the Atlantic Coast, and although these events are relatively rare each season, team BirdCast would like to highlight some of the conditions along the Atlantic […]  Read more...

Enter the lion! A potentially substantial winter storm is brewing, Saturn, and forecasts suggest it will leave its mark across a wide swath of the northern US. We focus on the NE US in this post, because of the continuing thread of Eastern Promises and the potential effects for birds from any Nor’easter. The animation […]  Read more...

As hinted in last week’s post, there was some potential for scattered light migration across portions of the South-Central and Southeastern US. On 19 February 2013, as a substantial frontal boundary approached the Mississippi River valley, conditions for nocturnal bird migration were favorable in many areas of the eastern Gulf Coast east through the Carolinas. […]  Read more...

In our last post, we highlighted an area of southerly flow that is forecast for Sunday – Tuesday, 17-19 February 2013, from portions of Texas to the western Appalachians. Below, we provide a short animated clips to show the forecast wind and precipitation for the coming week, highlighting the early week period in the South […]  Read more...