Last spring, in the moments and wakes of some epic diurnal migration reported from Southern California, BirdCast posted some discussions about a magical place.
Dr. Ryan Terrill and colleagues were fortunate to observe these epic flights, and the BirdCast team is happy to report that these observations and the efforts of a number of people and groups spawned an official migration count, kicking off in Spring 2021 as the Bear Divide Migration Count by the Moore Lab of Zoology at Occidental College! (Apologies to those who enjoyed birding in the vicinity of Bear Divide in relative calm – it seems that Bear Divide is now officially an awesome place that the bird migration world knows!)
So far, this season, there have been some excellent flights. For a sampling of the species and numbers of birds involved in these flights, see this set of checklists for some recent mornings’ observations: 5 May 2021, 4 May 2021, 3 May 2021, 29 April 2021, 20 April 2021, 10 April 2021, 8 April 2021, and 6 April 2021.
You can see live updates from the Bear Divide migration count here. And check out this presentation by Dr. Ryan Terrill on this spring’s movements to date at Bear Divide.
