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Light to moderate flights graced many areas from California east through the Rockies and featured Black Tern, Willow Flycatcher, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Gray Catbird, and Bobolink, while pulses of moderate and heavy flights featuring White-rumped Sandpiper, Common Nighthawk, Black-billed Cuckoo, Alder Flycatcher, Bay-breasted Warbler, and Canada Warbler were scattered across the East.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Team Birdcast is focusing on preparing for tomorrow’s Global Big Day, and as a result we haven’t been able to write a thorough forecast and analysis by our usual Friday deadline. Here is an abbreviated forecast, with weather…

Migration conditions will be generally more favorable across southern half of the West this week where moderate flights will feature Wilson’s Phalarope, Red-necked Phalarope, Black Tern, Willow Flycatcher, Yellow Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, and Green-tailed Towhee, while midweek in the East will see the most extensive moderate to heavy flights of Black-crowned Night-Heron, Semipalmated Plover, Short-billed Dowitcher, Black Skimmer, Common Nighthawk, Black-billed Cuckoo, Acadian Flycatcher, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Canada Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, and American Redstart in a pulse of significantly warmer air.

Moderate movements, particularly from California east through the central and southern Rockies, featured Black Tern, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Plumbeous Vireo, Swainson’s Thrush, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Western Tanager and highlighted the period in the West, while moderate to heavy flights, particularly in the central and southern US, featured Common Nighthawk, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Philadelphia Vireo, Veery, Magnolia Warbler, and American Redstart and highlighted the period in the East.

When birders in Cape May awoke on Monday morning, an interesting pattern was emerging (interesting is the norm in Cape May!). Numerous observers reported that numbers of migrants had arrived during and after the night and were still coming ashore from the Atlantic Ocean. The first real pulse of arrivals of this spring for a number of species had clearly occurred in Cape May. The combination of on the ground reports from eBird, nightly northeastern US radar data processing with BirdCast algorithms, and the excitement of spring arrivals inspired Team BirdCast to look a bit more closely at the events leading up to this movement.

Welcome to this installment of BirdCast Traffic Reports, posts describing northeastern US nocturnal bird migration traffic rates, as calculated from a completely automated pipeline of algorithms. The images you see in Traffic Reports present the migration traffic rate (MTR), direction of bird movement, and…

Favorable migration conditions in the latter half of the period for the West will bring extensive light to moderate movements of Spotted Sandpiper, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Dusky Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, MacGillivray’ Warbler, Lark Bunting, Clay-colored Sparrow, and Chipping Sparrow, while a highly variable period for weather in the East will bring similarly variable and patchily distributed moderate to heavy movements featuring Least Sandpiper, Forster’s Tern, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Acadian Flycatcher, Wood Thrush, Swainson’s Thrush, Golden-winged Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, and Baltimore Oriole.

Light to moderate flights, primarily in the Desert Southwest and the eastern Rockies, were the highlights of the week in the West and featured Wilson’s Phalarope, Vaux’s Swift, Western Wood-Pewee, Hammond’s Flycatcher, Brown-crested Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, Yellow Warbler, Hermit Warbler, Summer Tanager, Western Tanager, and Lark Sparrow, while moderate to heavy flights featuring Mississippi Kite, Willet, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, Gray Catbird, Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Blue Grosbeak, Dickcissel, and Baltimore Oriole were extensive in many areas of the East.

Team BirdCast has been experimenting with ways to detect changes in bird distributions as they are occurring. With the help of two talented Cornell undergraduates, Alex Wiebe and Benjamin Van Doren, who are leading the charge, we introduce the BirdCast…

The most favorable migration conditions in the West bring light to moderate movements of Vaux’s Swift, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, Bank Swallow, Virginia’s Warbler, Hermit Warbler, Lazuli Bunting, and Lark Sparrow during the work work, while the East experiences moderate to heavy flights featuring Forster’s Tern, Solitary Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Blue-headed Vireo, Kentucky Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart during a wave of favorable and unfavorable migration conditions associated with the movements of a strong frontal boundary.

Welcome to this installment of BirdCast Traffic Reports, posts describing northeastern US nocturnal bird migration traffic rates, as calculated from a completely automated pipeline of algorithms. The images you see in Traffic Reports present the migration traffic rate (MTR), direction of bird movement, and…

Light and moderate flights featuring White-faced Ibis, Semipalmated Plover, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Red-faced Warbler, and Western Tanager were frequent in many areas of the West, while the East saw moderate and locally heavy flights featuring Spotted Sandpiper, Chimney Swift, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Blackpoll Warbler, Cape May Warbler, and Prairie Warbler in the southerly flow ahead of a frontal boundary.