While migration has been pretty consistent along the east coast (10 consecutive nights of migration, the longest run I've seen in either spring or fall over the last six years), two nights ago the low pressure system that rumbled up the east coast effectively shut down migration over the mid-Atlantic coast, with southerly winds and heavy precipitation. The effect of that wind was felt into eastern PA, but diminished quickly thereafter, leaving western PA under light and variable winds. The effect on the radar was pretty cool- an apparent boundary between eastern and western PA where birds were clearly NOT migrating in the east, and were going gangbusters in the west (see Mike's last image, the one of the regional composite). Since the low pressure has "left the building" (so to speak), migration has begun again across the entire eastern flyway. Check out my post from this morning, which includes a recording snippet made by Mike last night: http://www.woodcreeper.com/2009/09/13/oops-they-did-it-again/
Thanks for sending the recording, Mike! Cheers David ____________________________________________________ David A. La Puma, Ph.D. Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, & Natural Resources Online Teaching Portfolio: http://www.woodcreeper.com/teaching Lockwood lab: http://rci.rutgers.edu/~jlockwoo Websites: http://www.woodcreeper.com http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcreeper On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:56 AM, Michael Lanzone <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi all, > > Another good night for migration here tonight. Last few nights have been > foggy and misty along the ridge here at Powdermill, so the calling rate has > been through the roof. Last night birds were going around Lake Erie and > heading south from Buffalo and into the Pittsburgh area (we are about an > hour to the east of Pittsburgh. East of us here migration was completely > dead. Last night the calling rate at times throughout the night was over > several hundred calls per minute. Tonight even though the volume of > migration is a lot higher, its not as good, but still around 20-50 per > minute. Birds are east of here tonight though, so whatever was keeping them > from heading east of here last night and concentrating them here has past. > It might have been heavy fog or heavier mist than here keeping them from > heading that way. I attached a few radar images of last night and tonight, > as well as a spectrogrsm screenshot of a small snippet of night last night. > > Talk to you all soon, > Mike > > Michael Lanzone > Biotechnology and Biomonitoring Lab Supervisor > Carnegie Museum of Natural History > Powdermill Avian Research Center > 1847 Route 381 > Rector, PA 15677 > 724.593.5521 Office > [email protected] > -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html --
