Over the course of the last few days the area has seen breezy conditions, and at times torrential rain, two causes that often starve off the night migration of birds, putting them on hold. Seeing the weather conditions for today, I realized that tonight held the chance of a good nocturnal migration for birds over the area. It was the first night in several that had clear skies, and fairly reasonable winds. Thinking of this, I contacted Ryan and told him to take a peak outside if he had the chance at his place in Vermont, and I would do the same here.

As the night grew on, I decided to look at the base reflectivity maps on the NOAA site, to see if any birds were being picked up on the radars. I took a look at the map, and sure enough the image hinted at birds taking flight at dusk to migrate south. The pattern was obviously more consistent with birds than with weather, because as the radar was put into a loop, it had a big-bang effect with the reflected matter coming from central areas, rather than moving in the typical west to east fashion that is the prevailing direction for storms in the area. Also, the sky is 100% clear, so rain was not looking likely. The original base reflectivity map follows:

As you can see by the local doplar radar from the weather channel, no rain was being detected.

As the night wore on, you could see that the birds were obviously moving and concentrating on the way. Seeing this I decided to head outside to take a listen. But unfortunately, the noise from local traffic, and people’s homes (AC, TVs) was just too much. So my first try at 9:00pm was a failure. My try at 10:30pm was more productive with a single flock of Canada Geese, and about 10 passerines, consisting of 6 Swainson’s Thrushes, 2 Gray-cheeked Thrushes, and 2 unidentified warblers.

My last efforts at 12:00am (midnight) produced little again, but held more promise. I tallied a total of another 14 birds including 8 Swainson’s Thrushes, 1 Gray-cheeked Thrush, 1 Wood Thrush, and 4 unidentified warblers/sparrows. At one point 3 warbler-esque birds chipped overhead rather low in quick succession giving the most audible calls of the night.

Overall I felt it was a decent night for the amount of time I actually spent outside (not that much really). I guess I was just disappointed that there wasn’t a higher concentration of birds detected during my time outside. But, I can’t rule out the fact that several (many?) birds could have gone by un-noticed as the hum of human life dragged on from people’s cars and homes. Hopefully Ryan had better luck up his way. We’ll just have to wait and see.

As always, Good Birding.
~Chad (10/3/2006)