News

The West will see light to moderate flights, particularly in the Desert Southwest late in the weekend and late in the work week, featuring Spotted Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher, Swainson’s Thrush, Townsend’s Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Western Tanager, while a pulse of highly favorable migration period late in the period in the East will bring moderate to very heavy flights featuring Red-headed Woodpecker, Acadian Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Swainson’s Thrush, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Northern Parula, and Mourning Warbler. Early period brings a dynamic and complex atmosphere will potential for Gulf Coast concentrations, where late period brings a major incursion of Neotropical migrants across and around the Gulf of Mexico, as favorable flight conditions arrive in Mexico and northern Central America at the peak of the season.

Moderate movements featuring Semipalmated Plover, Caspian Tern, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, Swainson’s Thrush, Nashville Warbler, and Western Tanager were the norm for California and the Desert Southwest, while moderate to locally heavy flights graced portions of the East and featured Spotted Sandpiper, Great Crested Flycatcher, Red-eyed Vireo, Wood Thrush, Blackpoll Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, and Dickcissel.

Here comes the BirdCast World Edition again! Here, we highlight a species with an extensive global distribution and focus on populations that winter in and migrate through southeast Asia: Barn Swallow!

We’ve created a new tool to update us as species advance through their arrivals in each region, using data from eBird. We assign each species to four possible categories: Not Yet Arrived, Arrival Beginning, Approaching Peak, or Peaking. Then, we…

Team BirdCast is including a World Edition to bring a more diverse array of forecasts and analyses for this season. In this week’s post, we briefly feature four species: Common Cuckoo, Barn Swallow, Eurasian Blackcap, and European Robin.

Scattered favorable conditions primary in the middle of the forecast period will see light to moderate flights of Green Heron, Western Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Hammond’s Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, and Townsend’s Warbler for the West, while widespread favorable migration bring moderate to heavy flights in many areas of the East and will feature Sora, Least Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Common Nighthawk, Blue-headed Vireo, Kentucky Warbler, Summer Tanager, and Painted Bunting. Continued unfavorable conditions in many areas of northern Central America will slow the typical seasonal pulses of trans-Gulf migration.

The past week in the West saw light to moderate flights primarily in the southern portion of the region featuring Swainson’s Hawk, Vaux’s Swift, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Cassin’s Vireo, Nashville Warbler, Grace’s Warbler, and Lazuli Bunting, while moderate and locally heavy flights came to many areas of the East and featured Marbled Godwit, Hudsonian Godwit, Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, House Wren, Northern Parula, Tennessee Warbler, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

We’ve created a new tool to update us as species advance through their arrivals in each region. We assign each species to four possible categories, and we look for transitions between categories to tell us how each species is progressing through these stages. Most of the action is happening in the southeast, as we expect for this time of year. But this will not be true for long!

Continental Summary
Widespread light to moderate movements that feature Forster’s Tern, Vaux’s Swift, Bank Swallow, Wilson’s Warbler, Hermit Warbler, and Lazuli Bunting come to the West to begin and end the period, while the East experiences a series of moderate to heavy flights…

On our 28 March arrival update, we highlighted the late arrival of Chimney Swifts into the US this spring. In the last several days, we’ve seen a big increase in eBird reports of swifts, and the 10-day delay we wrote about earlier seems to have evaporated!

Mostly unfavorable conditions for migration dominate in the West, restricting light to moderate flights of Green Heron, Black-bellied Plover, Ash-throated Flycatcher, American Pipit, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Golden-crowned Sparrow to late in the period or local distributions, while mid and late period southerly flow will bring an influx of Caspian Tern, Forster’s Tern, Barn Swallow, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Prothonotary Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Palm Warbler, Summer Tanager, Lark Sparrow, Indigo Bunting, and Blue Grosbeak in moderate to locally heavy movements. Fallout potential on the Gulf Coast arrives on Monday and Tuesday in mid to eastern Gulf states and again on Thursday and Friday with the passage of significant frontal boundaries.

Team BirdCast plans to include a more diverse array of forecasts and analyses for this season. You may have already seen some of the new graphics that we started to employ earlier in March. Now, we present another new feature: BirdCast World Edition.