Quick post to say there are a bazillion (give or take a kajillion) birds moving tonight. Here's the radar map from midnight EDT, note the depth of the dark blue doughnut-shaped circles. Light blue means birds are moving, dark blue means even more birds are moving. Green centers of those blues, like Homer Simpson's desired bowling ball with the liquid center, indicates heavy migration. Twenty minutes in the backyard was filled with more calls than I typically hear, almost exclusively thrushes and other low-frequency calling birds (that is, no sparrows or warblers that I could discern).
Be careful not to confuse the blocky green-with-yellow over Ohio and West Virginia with migration, that's rain. But the greens that show up encompassed by blue, hold on to your hats: lots of birds overhead.
Birding may be worth a few extra minutes in the morning!
-
4 comments:
Funny, I thought a kajillion was more than a bazillion. Guess I was wrong. My own preferred measurements for large groups of birds are not family-friendly and won't be mentioned here.
It was still a little slow in my part of NC this morning. Muggy and overcast and not many warblers though lots of Robins and Crows that I haven't seen in numbers for several weeks now.
There's a cold front coming through this afternoon, I'd wager the majority of the birds will follow it. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is excellent!
Thanks for the tip. I'll be out listening.
I was very careful to use nonsensical measurements lest someone call me out on an actual number (see the Straight Dope's listing of actual numbers - more names than I ever realized, but I'm sheltered that way). I did, by the way, spare the commentary running through my head about the plethora of calls - I tend to go towards "potty-mouth" adjectives and adverbs in those situations.
Right now I'm running detectors over the recording from last night, hopefully some calls will lend themselves to identification.
Hope you guys find all those migrants over the next couple of weeks!
-Mike
Post a Comment