I would love to hear the criteria for what we would expect weather-wise for a Murrelet Watch. Does anyone know what conditions we have seen in the past that have lead to our murrelet sightings in the Front Range? Also, where would we expect our murrelets are coming from, what source region? Does anyone have any info or guesses on this kind of stuff?
I understand Walter that you were trying to give people a heads up to the possibility of murrelets, so I don't hold you responsible for answering my questions here, yet maybe you could answer those questions partially. Currently, like Walter has mentioned, the conditions don't seem right for birds to cross the Rockies into Colorado, but I have been wrong before and hope to be proven wrong in the future. For those interested parties, I would take a look at the 850 and 700mb streamlines on my webpage to get an idea of why I think the conditions aren't right to get these birds to our location from the Pacific coast. 700mb is about mountaintop for our higher peaks in Colorado and 850mb is about the height of the base of the foothills (our surface conditions here in the front range metropolis). http://homes.comet.ucar.edu/~guarente/birdweather/stream.htm Click on the "00hr" analysis for 850mb or 700mb and you can see where the winds entering your area of Colorado are originating. This is NOT exactly the trajectory a bird would take, but it gives a good idea of the prevailing winds and which direction a bird might fly if looking for the greatest flight efficiency at that pressure level. If you want to look into the future for these two levels, once clicking on the first image, you can use the right arrow key to advance, or the next button in the bottom left of the slide show player. Any questions, feel free to email me back privately or if the list would benefit from an answer please email the list proper. Bryan Guarente Instructional Designer/Meteorologist The COMET Program University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Boulder, CO -- Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en
