Continental Summary

A busy week of migration featured light to moderate flights across much of the West, featuring Cackling Goose, Dunlin, Black Tern, Vaux’s Swift, Tree Swallow, Black-headed Grosbeak and Fox Sparrow, and heavy flights to begin and end the period in the East, featuring some huge movements of American Redstart among other species such as Broad-winged Hawk, Chimney Swift, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, American Pipit, Palm Warbler, Northern Parula and White-crowned Sparrow.

Want to know more about what species are on the move this week? Visit our forecast page.

Need a review of our definitions for regions, species on the move, and migration amounts? Please visit this link.

Quick Links to Regions

Upper Midwest and Northeast	Gulf Coast and Southeast
Great Plains	West

Upper Midwest and Northeast

A large flight occurred to kick off the weekend, including some heavy and very heavy flights in the Mississippi River valley and the coast of New England. These flights included a massive movement of birds at the Tribute in Light in New York City. Flights decreased in intensity and extent as high pressure returned to the region, with movements becoming more localized. But this decrease did not occur until after a massive morning flight event occurred in Cape May (see this site). Scattered light to moderate movements persisted in the region for the remainder of the period. Note, however, that Thursday night saw the next big pulse of heavy and very heavy flights in the Upper Midwest behind a low pressure system’s precipitation.

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Increasing

Decreasing

Gulf Coast and Southeast

A busy weekend of moderate to heavy flights across the region included some particularly active movements in the southern Appalachians, the southeastern coastal Plain and Florida, and also the western Gulf Coast. But by Monday night, moderate and locally heavy movements were much reduced in their spatial extents, a pattern that largely continued for the remainder of the week.

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Increasing

Decreasing

Great Plains

Pulses of movements occurred within the region during much of the period, with few nights of consistently favorable conditions across the Plains. Early weekend saw flights in the southern Plains of light to moderate intensity; the northern and central Plains saw similarly intense movements during much of the workweek. In general, conditions aloft included precipitation and marginal winds, making most movements scattered and more localized. However, Thursday night saw a more extensive and intense movement, the first widespread flight of the week for the region with moderate to heavy flights prevailed from the Dakotas south through Oklahoma.

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Increasing

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West

Light to moderate flights were apparent from the Pacific Coast east across the region through the Rockies to kick off the weekend. By Sunday night, however, most movement was centered west of the Sierras or east of the Rockies, as less favorable conditions including precipitation arrived in the intermontane west and Desert Southwest. Another later week pulse of scattered light to moderate flights, similar interrupted across the region by precipitation, was a harbinger of a more extensive end of the week movement that saw light to moderate flights return to much of the region.

Top Movers

Increasing

Decreasing

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Farnsworth and Van Doren