News

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a category 4 storm, and its remnants continue to move north and east through the US. Numerous seabirds entrained and displaced by this storm are occurring far inland, and our live map of these observations highlights their distributions.  Read more...

On Sunday Tropical Storm/Hurricane Henri will make landfall in southern New England with dangerous storm surges, strong winds, and heavy rainfall. The storm is then slated to move north up the Connecticut River valley before departing east into the Gulf of Maine. This system will bring numerous seabirds ashore, in many coastal and inland waterbodies in and east of its path.  Read more...

The BirdCast team led a study published today that uses two decades of data to show that migration magnitude, light output, and wind conditions are important predictors of collisions at a high-profile building in Chicago. This research has global implications for conservation action campaigns aimed at eliminating an important cause of bird mortality: light pollution and resulting collisions with structures.  Read more...

The spring of 2021 offered many migration highlights, and here we showcase the top 5 mega-flights of this soon-to-be-in-the-books season.  Read more...

During the past week, enormous numbers of birds have been migrating through the US. But birders seeking massive concentrations of birds in their favorite habitats may not have experienced the fallouts of their dreams. A new visualization depicting the altitude of migration, when viewed in conjunction with the distribution of migration traffic, highlights an explanation.  Read more...

Southern California affords some excellent opportunities to see continuing diurnal migration of typically nocturnal migrants. Kicking off in Spring 2021, the Bear Divide Migration Count by the Moore Lab of Zoology at Occidental College is one of these opportunities!  Read more...

For more than 50 years US radar aeroecology has largely been restricted to the lower 48 states — until now. Just out in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the BirdCast team publishes the first weather surveillance radar studies of Alaskan bird migration.  Read more...

During the week of April 19-25, several weather events set up excellent conditions for observing visible migration, mostly of wood-warblers, including this Worm-eating Warbler, migrating along Florida’s east coast. Our colleague Jacob Drucker reports on his observations on the ground!  Read more...

Trans-Gulf migrants are encountering rain as they approach the US coastline. Birders in Texas and in other areas along the Gulf of Mexico cost should make plans to visit the coast ... now.  Read more...

Every year approximately 6.8 million migratory birds collide with communication towers in the United States and Canada. Non-flashing lighting is a primary factor in these collisions. Fortunately, there’s a unique opportunity for communications tower owners and birds to mitigate the hazards that such structures pose.  Read more...

Tanagers bring the most incredible splashes of color to spring migration across the continent. Check out the movements of three migratory species over the last month.  Read more...

April's Super Pink Moon will be visible after sunset and reach peak illumination at 11:33 P.M. EDT on 26 April 2021. For those wishing to see birds migrating at night, if the sky is clear, point a telescope or strong pair of binoculars toward the moon, particularly if you are in a location where the BirdCast model predicts medium to high intensity migration.  Read more...

An evolving frontal boundary will make for some interesting conditions along the Atlantic Seaboard to transport birds farther afield than they might typically travel in the coming 72 hours.  Read more...

The spring window for peak bird migration in Texas has arrived, so it's time to get outside and experience the coming spectacle! Just doing one simple thing will help protect these migrating birds: turn off all non-essential lights between 11pm and 6am every night to go Lights Out and reduce collision risk!  Read more...

Continuing frontal boundaries and associated unstable weather conditions in the Gulf of Mexico are going to make for some interesting migration patterns in the coming week.  Read more...

The GloBAM research consortium published a letter in Science with a call for European national meteorological agencies to provide biological and meteorological data from its radars.  Read more...

In the early morning hours of 9 April 2021, La Soufrière in St Vincent erupted and has continued to do so in dramatic and disastrous fashion in the days since the first explosion. The ash plume from these eruptions now spans a wide swath of the globe from the Caribbean to the western Mediterranean. Birds migrating through this plume may experience hazardous conditions, so observers in areas where concentrations of sulfur dioxide and other volcanic emissions are high should monitor birds' behaviors and physical conditions for potential signs of impacts.  Read more...

The BirdCast team has unveiled a new feature on our maps! Forecast and live migration maps now indicate the total number of birds in flight above the contiguous United States.  Read more...

On Saturday 10 April, a frontal boundary is forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico region. Beginning midday Saturday, birds may begin concentrating in coastal habitats, particularly in the Upper Texas and southwestern Louisiana coasts; but events may be quite complex, because forecasts suggest that the front will stall.  Read more...

Easterly winds are blowing in the North Atlantic, and they may bring some surprise visitors to northeastern North America.  Read more...