News

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a category 4 storm, and its remnants continue to move north and east through the US. Numerous seabirds entrained and displaced by this storm are occurring far inland, and our live map of these observations highlights their distributions.

On Sunday Tropical Storm/Hurricane Henri will make landfall in southern New England with dangerous storm surges, strong winds, and heavy rainfall. The storm is then slated to move north up the Connecticut River valley before departing east into the Gulf of Maine. This system will bring numerous seabirds ashore, in many coastal and inland waterbodies in and east of its path.

The BirdCast team led a study published today that uses two decades of data to show that migration magnitude, light output, and wind conditions are important predictors of collisions at a high-profile building in Chicago. This research has global implications for conservation action campaigns aimed at eliminating an important cause of bird mortality: light pollution and resulting collisions with structures.

The BirdCast team led a study published today in PNAS that uses two decades of data to show that migration magnitude, light output, and wind conditions are important predictors of collisions at a high-profile building in Chicago.

The spring of 2021 offered many migration highlights, and here we showcase the top 5 mega-flights of this soon-to-be-in-the-books season.

During the past week, enormous numbers of birds have been migrating through the US. But birders seeking massive concentrations of birds in their favorite habitats may not have experienced the fallouts of their dreams. A new visualization depicting the altitude of migration, when viewed in conjunction with the distribution of migration traffic, highlights an explanation.

During the past week, enormous numbers of birds have been migrating through the US. A review of our live migration maps, in particular the night of 14-15 May, confirm several nights well above 400 million birds aloft!

Southern California affords some excellent opportunities to see continuing diurnal migration of typically nocturnal migrants. Kicking off in Spring 2021, the Bear Divide Migration Count by the Moore Lab of Zoology at Occidental College is one of these opportunities!

For more than 50 years US radar aeroecology has largely been restricted to the lower 48 states — until now. Just out in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the BirdCast team publishes the first weather surveillance radar studies of Alaskan bird migration.

During the week of April 19-25, several weather events set up excellent conditions for observing visible migration, mostly of wood-warblers, including this Worm-eating Warbler, migrating along Florida’s east coast. Our colleague Jacob Drucker reports on his observations on the ground!

Trans-Gulf migrants are encountering rain as they approach the US coastline. Birders in Texas and in other areas along the Gulf of Mexico cost should make plans to visit the coast … now.

Every year approximately 6.8 million migratory birds collide with communication towers in the United States and Canada. Non-flashing lighting is a primary factor in these collisions. Fortunately, there’s a unique opportunity for communications tower owners and birds to mitigate the hazards that such structures pose.