News

Winter is not necessarily a season of the year that we associate with bird migration. This is for good reason, as the epic movements of spring and fall are not usually underway and nowhere do we find the diversity in…

Team Sapsucker made North American birding history on 25 April 2013, recording 294 species in a single, midnight-to-midnight day. More details are available here, but, briefly, the Sapsuckers pulled off a near perfect big day run because of a unique combination…

For our inaugural automated migration forecast and live migration map analysis post, let’s take a quick look to see how the maps compare!

With the vernal equinox approaching, Team BirdCast welcomes back our forecast and live migration maps for the spring 2019 season!

As of June 9-10 Team BirdCast is calling spring 2020 a wrap. Our forecasts and live migration maps return on or about 10 August 2020. In the coming months we hope to follow several threads from stories we highlighted during the spring. Here are some possibilities.

To inform the public on threats from light pollution to migrating birds, Colorado State University’s Dr. Kyle Horton and his collaborators are hosting a virtual seminar series this fall entitled, “Transdisciplinary perspectives on artificial-lights-at-night and achieving sustainable night skies.”

Aeroecological research is more than simply studies of bird migration. Victoria Simons is studying how Tree Swallow foraging behavior relates to their usage of airspace as habitat.

I sit on a secluded bench to take in the mid July views of Colorado State University’s Mountain Campus at Pingree Park, a remote site dedicated to field courses, conference retreats, and mountain research. As the evening sun bathes the valley in its warm, golden light, a gentle breeze carries calls of Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Wilson’s Snipe, and Mountain Chickadees to where I sit.

The Weather Channel has taken to naming winter storms for the 2012-2013 winter season, and Brutus is at bat. This powerful storm is dumping heavy snow in parts of the Rockies, and the associated frontal boundary strongly demarcates much colder…

Hurricane Helene is a dangerous storm predicted to make landfall on Thursday afternoon eastern time in the Florida Panhandle. Its circulation will entrain pelagic birds, displace nearshore species, and down overland migrants in many areas of the southeast and probably as far north as Tennessee and maybe even Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. We are following the progress of the storm and posting observations here.

Francine made landfall in Louisiana, now making its way north along the lower Mississippi River valley. Its circulation has entrained some pelagic birds, displaced some nearshore species, and downed overland migrants.

Hurricane Sandy’s epic, devastating, and predicted jog to the Northwest just prior to her New Jersey landfall was driven, largely, by a “rex block” or “Greenland block” – serious high pressure over the North Atlantic that, in effect, blocked the passage of…