Bookend Migration

     While I'm sitting in Minnesota suffering through this brutally lousy weather and seeing few birds, the situation on the coasts is different. In Florida the panhandle got blasted with rain and flooding but now that the storm front has passed the migration has picked up again.

      The radar returns from the southern end of Florida show birds arriving after probably making the jump from Cuba this morning. The returns in central Florida are likely birds continuing to move north behind the storm.

    The other part of the country seeing good movement this morning appears to be the west coast from central California up through the Pacific Northwest. The central valley in California has shown lots of radar activity for a few days now. The rest of the country is much more quiet. Any birds that moved last night have probably landed so just keep checking the backyard.
   The Garganey that showed up at Crex Meadows in Wisconsin is still hanging out. When the weather breaks it will be interesting to see if it moves on.