Monday, August 12, 2013

Birds Moving South Tonight

A quick glance at radar tonight showed some pretty impressive movement of migrants. The extremely pleasant weather and winds from the northwest made perfect conditions for birds to take off.

The Missouri River Valley looks pretty busy and the upper midwest is seeing lots of south bound birds showing up. I checked a local park reserve yesterday to see if the Sedge Wrens that were on territory in June were still there and it was obvious that they and many of the other grassland birds were already gone.

Now we spend the next 3 months trying to figure out how to identify the young sparrows and fall warblers. If you thought spring was a challenge.....

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Roger -- These maps are always so interesting. This may sound like a stupid question, but here goes. It seems that many of these radar clusters are centered around metro areas. Why would that be?

Minnesota Birdnerd said...

Each of these clusters is centered on a National Weather Service Doppler radar facility. The eastern part of the country, which is more heavily populated has many of these stations. If you look at the Great Plains and mountains there are very few doppler locations. The ability to track bird migration with radar is easier in the east because of the number of stations.