News – Page 38 – BirdCast

November 23, 2015Migration story: mid-latitude cyclones, Plains temperature anomalies, Edmund Fitzgerald, and Franklin’s Gulls
November 13 saw an epic Franklin’s Gull and Cave Swallow flight to the East Coast of the United States, the likes of which have not been previously recorded. Here, we describe in the first of a three part series how and why this unprecedented event occurred.
May 26, 2020Migration Story: 23 May 2020, magic on the coast of Virginia
23 May 2020 on the eastern shore of Virginia brought some migration magic to a small habitat patch for some lucky observers. Just over 200 migrants in a 10-acre patch. Our friend Ned Brinkley describes the action and puts it in proper perspective.
December 16, 2019Migration Science: Phenology of nocturnal avian migration has shifted at the continental scale
Team BirdCast has been analyzing radar data with our group of talented collaborators, and today we published a new study on shifting patterns of nocturnal bird migration and how dynamic these patterns can be spatially.
September 19, 2019Migration Science: one in every four birds gone in the US and Canada
A study published today in the journal Science reveals that the volume of spring migration, as measured by the NEXRAD radar network in the night skies, has dropped by 14 percent in the past decade. The paper further compiles bird survey data collected on the ground, indicating that bird populations in the United States and Canada have declined by 29 percent since 1970, representing a loss of almost 3 billion birds.
March 16, 2012Migration Report: 9 – 15 March 2012
Refresh your memory with last week’s BirdCast, then read on to see how we did. There was light migration in the mid-continent over the weekend, but building high pressure caused some very large nights of migration by mid-week on 13-14…
April 12, 2012Migration Report: 6 – 12 April 2012
We will step through last week’s BirdCast forecast to see how it did with predicting the bird movements and species arrivals. The overall pattern has been of continued decent conditions for movement through the mid-continent, but northerly winds and cooler temperatures have…
May 11, 2012Migration Report: 4 – 10 May 2012
As one might expect near the peak of spring migration diversity and abundance, this week saw nights with moderate to heavy migration across many areas of the continental US. In fact, higher than expected migration amounts occurred on several nights…
April 6, 2012Migration Report: 31 March – 5 April 2012
Last week’s BirdCast forecast made a couple predictions about fallouts that we focus on this week. These include a widespread waterfowl fallout in the Northeast, which we discuss in some depth to help eBirders prepare for similar events in the future. Along…
May 4, 2012Migration Report: 27 April – 3 May 2012
Late April and early May is peak migration for many of the more southerly sections of the United States, with the northern states and southern Canadian provinces seeing peak movements during the second and third weeks of May. By late…
June 1, 2012Migration Report: 25 – 31 May 2012
This forecast period (view last week’s forecast) saw what were likely the last major movements of this spring’s migration, though some birds will continue migrating through the 1st and 2nd weeks of June. The West experienced several nights of light…
February 27, 2012Migration Report: 25 – 26 Feburary 2012
Check out last week’s forecast, then read on to see how we did! Although it is still February, when bird migration can be expected to be minimal overall, the predictions for 25-26 Feb 2012 were borne out by observations on…
March 30, 2012Migration Report: 23 – 30 March 2012
Last week’s BirdCast forecast predicted a slower week of migration, as weather in the East and Midwest turned cooler with northerly and westerly flow that would be less conducive to migration. Despite a record-early spring for many species to date, we predicted…

Scientific Team