Hi everyone,
For the spring migration season I am going to try to post weekly "migration forecasts", with predictions for the following 6 days. These are mainly focused on southern Ontario, as that is the region I am most familiar with, but I will include comments on other areas of Ontario occasionally. *Please note that these are just my personal predictions & are by no means a sure thing. So if you consult only this to plan your trips, don't blame me if there aren't many birds that day : ) Ontario Migration Forecast - May 4th to May 9th Overview Sorry about the late post… I’ve been at Pelee and haven’t had service! After the big surge of birds around a week ago, things have quieted off a bit here in southern Ontario. New migrants are definitely trickling in, and some rarities are being found, but not massive numbers. As of right now this week is looking like it will start off fairly quiet, then pick up towards the weekend and into next week. North winds will dominate tomorrow (Wednesday), then Thursday to Saturday there will be a mixture of south/southeast winds. There may be a lot of rain on the days with good winds though, so that may mean less migrants arriving - Likely New Arrivals This Week; * (Note. By “new arrivals” I mean low numbers of these birds, or the first one or two, showing up in the province. Usually Southwest Ontario gets birds about a week or more before other areas in the province too) - Semipalmated Plover - Black-bellied Plover - Least Sandpiper - Ruddy Turnstone - Wilson’s Phalarope - Black Tern - Red-headed Woodpecker - American Pipit - Warbling Vireo - Red-eyed Vireo - Yellow-throated Vireo - Gray Catbird - Eastern Kingbird - Least Flycatcher - Ruby-throated Hummingbird - Great Crested Flycatcher - Swainson’s Thrush - Veery - Gray-cheeked Thrush - Blue-winged Warbler - Golden-winged Warbler - Orange-crowned Warbler - Tennessee Warbler - Ovenbird - Blackburnian Warbler - Prairie Warbler - Common Yellowthroat - Northern Parula - Black-throated Blue Warbler - American Redstart - Cape May Warbler - Magnolia Warbler - Clay-colored Sparrow - Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Scarlet Tanager - Indigo Bunting - Orchard Oriole - Baltimore Oriole - Migrants arriving in large numbers: - Lesser Yellowlegs - Spotted Sandpiper - Solitary Sandpiper - American Golden-plover - Dunlin - Forster’s Tern - Common Tern - Green Heron - Broad-winged Hawk - American Bittern - Hermit Thrush - Barn Swallow - Bank Swallow - Cliff Swallow - Brown Thrasher - House Wren - Marsh Wren - Chimney Swift - Ruby-crowned Kinglet - Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - Eastern Towhee - Palm Warbler - Yellow-rumped Warbler - Pine Warbler - Palm Warbler - Black-and-white Warbler - Black-throated Green Warbler - Nashville Warbler - Many more too! - Rarities to look for this week: - Black-necked Stilt, Willet and American Avocet (especially in southwestern Ontario) - Neotropic Cormorant (Lake Erie & Lake Ontario in particular) - Snowy Egret and Little Blue Heron - Blue Grosbeak - Worm-eating, Kirtland’s and Kentucky Warblers Daily Forecasts - Wednesday, May 4th Sun and cloud for a lot of southern Ontario, but there will be north winds and cooler temperatures… so it will be a poor migration day overall. There may be some hawks moving… but overall a quiet day. - Thursday, May 5th More North/northwest winds, likely overcast with a chance of rain and similarly cool temperatures (around 10 degrees). Again, there may be a few birds arriving, but I doubt it will be a very good day. - Friday, May 6th Another cold day, with east/southeast wind and a chance of rain! Again, I don’t think it will be that productive… but it may be a slight improvement over the the past few days. It depends how much of a southerly component the wind has, and also how much it rains. - Saturday, May 7th Southeast winds, clear skies and slightly warmer temperatures than the previous days, but still not very ideal conditions. This is pretty far in the future at this point, and I don’t trust forecasts over a few days in advance… but if the weather holds it will probably be fairly quiet, an improvement over the last few a days. - Sunday, May 8th onwards Next week is starting to look pretty promising! Sunday may be *ok*, but starting on Monday and lasting a few days, there should be south/southwest winds and warmer temperatures (20+ degrees). After a slower week, there should be a significant surge of birds during these days throughout the province. Again, this is pretty far away now… but fingers crossed! Summary The week will start out quiet and cold, then it’ll pick up on weekend or earlier next week. It’s still May though! So birds will be showing up, even if there’s not massive numbers. Southwestern Ontario migration hotspots should be starting to go crazy getting into next week…. Get ready! Websites that I use frequently Windy (wind, temperature, precipitation and more) - windy.com Birdcast (good for large scale trends) - https://birdcast.info Accueweather (an easier to read weather site that is normally accurate) - https://www.accuweather.com If anyone is on Twitter, I post almost daily about weather birding related things. 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