News

As of 20 April 2020 the BirdCast live migration maps switched color palettes to match migration forecast maps. The new color palette is more suitable for viewers with green-, red-, or blue-color blindness, and is perceptually uniform in color and black-and-white (see this interesting talk by the designers of this so-called "viridis" color scale).  Read more...

This update focuses on the migration activity in the West where several nights of significant movements were apparent recently.  Read more...

A brief migration update - another frontal boundary has started to move into the Gulf of Mexico region , and there are a number of interesting events to share this evening with its passage.  Read more...

We updated the color scheme of migration forecast maps on 13 April 2020 to add more contrast to the palette that makes visually impaired viewing easier.  Read more...

A frontal boundary is approaching the Gulf of Mexico region, likely moving over water late on Thursday evening. Fallouts and concentrations of migrating birds are likely along the Gulf of Mexico coast for several days.  Read more...

Spring migration is now in full effect in many areas, with the beginnings of some peak windows of passage approaching for the southern latitudes of the US in the coming two weeks! Light to medium intensity movements will occur in the eastern and southern US.  Read more...

Many species are on the move as we officially cross the vernal equinox threshold into the realm of Northern Hemisphere spring.  Read more...

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...

A tweet from the National Weather Service in Key West showing bird migration over the Florida Keys went viral, spread and has now been covered extensively by social and news media outlets. Team BirdCast adds some comments and color!  Read more...

Team BirdCast has been analyzing radar data with our group of talented collaborators, and today we published a new study on shifting patterns of nocturnal bird migration and how dynamic these patterns can be spatially.  Read more...

A study published today in the journal Science reveals that the volume of spring migration, as measured by the NEXRAD radar network in the night skies, has dropped by 14 percent in the past decade. The paper further compiles bird survey data collected on the ground, indicating that bird populations in the United States and Canada have declined by 29 percent since 1970, representing a loss of almost 3 billion birds.   Read more...

Members of the BirdCast team will be at the Tribute in Light with New York City Audubon volunteers to monitor bird appearing in the intense beams of light this evening and collect additional data to study the effects of these intense lights on bird migration.  Read more...

Hurricanes and their impacts, in particular in depositing seabirds far afield from their normal haunts, represent unique opportunities to understand how animals behave in and respond to serious disturbances. Check out live sightings of species that may by associated with the passage of Dorian this week.  Read more...

BirdCast tracks with great interest the movements of hurricanes and the pelagic species that they often entrain and displace on shore and at times far inland. The team is also interested in bird migration around hurricanes, and with the arrival and passage of Hurricane Dorian off the coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, we can see how some birds handle the circulation of an intense cyclonic storm.   Read more...

Welcome to fall migration season 2019 for BirdCast! Our 3-day forecast maps have returned, and our migration maps are live, so you can check predictions for and monitor nightly migration intensity through the fall season. Please visit us often!  Read more...

Welcome MistNet, a deep convolutional neural network to discriminate precipitation from biology in radar scans! MistNet is a tool that can enable large‐scale, long‐term, and reproducible measurements of whole migration systems, a hallmark of developments by our collaborators at University of Massachusetts and the BirdCast team. Read on to find out more about today's paper published describing this exciting new tool.  Read more...

19-22 April 2019 saw some spectacularly intense weather in the eastern US, with some obvious after effects in terms of migrating birds' distributions. Read on for a brief description of events that presumably carried nocturnally migrating songbirds farther afield that they intended to travel.  Read more...

The BirdCast team has been busy publishing science! We have been very fortunate to publish a number of papers over the past year to document all the cool findings we've discovered in our work and with our collaborators. Here is a short summary of some of them, with links to where you can read more.  Read more...

Special issue on Radar Aeroecology  As you know, one of the main methods we use to study birds here at BirdCast is radar. Radar has been used to study animal movements for a long time, but recent advances has greatly increased its use and lead to a new wave of research and applications of radar […]  Read more...