My understanding is that generally the longer the migration delay the more
birds are ready to fly, so I agree with David that the potential exists for a
huge waterfowl flight up from the mid-Atlantic if the weather sets up right. On
the other hand, if weather is not suddenly conducive, we could see dribs and
drab pushing northbound through semi-conducive conditions.
I remember the great raptor migration release after the winter of 92-93 thaw.
We had the very tough blizzard in mid-March 93 and when the sun finally melted
through the hefty snow deposit (~10 days later) there was a very impressive
flight noted from Mount Pleasant. Favorable migration weather began about
March 23, but the big raptor pulse didn’t begin until the snow had largely
melted on Mar 26th -- a substantial pulse then continued on most days through
Apr 8th. During this period nearly 1500 raptors were tallied, and this didn’t
include any Broad-wingeds. There were 31 Goldens, and symptomatic of that time
only 3 Balds. Notable were 282 Red-shouldereds, including an impressive 109 on
March 31st. That latter day was amazing with over 400 raptors in passage.
There were still remains of a huge snow drift on the south side of the
observatory, but skies were sunny and the temp must have reached at least well
into the 60s because I recall Cornell students Adam Byrne and Ned Brinkley had
taken off their shirts and were pretty well sunburned by day’s end. Ironman
Bernie Guirey compiled the Mount P totals in those days, and for this period
from Mar 26-Apr 8 (minus two days with unfavorable migration conditions) the Mt
P watch site was covered for an average of 6 hours a day. Thanks to Tom Salo,
the data was tracked down a few years ago and submitted to Hawkwatch.org, but I
notice it’s not currently online – perhaps due do to the fact that start times
were missing from the data. I will forward a copy of the historic data I have
to the Cayuga Bird Club so that it might be posted on CBC website.
Tom prompted me awhile back to see if we could get coverage up at Mt P again.
The Mt P hawk watch came together spontaneously back in the early 90s. Such an
effort takes the favorable circumstances of one or more folks free to organize
and enough others available to help out and fill in so that continuous coverage
on at least the good and moderately good flight days is maintained. Any future
efforts should follow the standardized counting format noted on hawkwatch.org
Needless to say for many of you, it appears the conditions have potential for
some big raptor flight days in the next few weeks.
Bill E
From: david nicosia
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 11:20 PM
To: Cayuga Birds
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Snow Geese on the move
I wonder when we are going to get the bulk of our snow geese migration? E-bird
data shows
that most of the snow geese are still in southeast PA, NJ and the Delmarva
Peninsula.
Weather-wise I don't see any prolonged mild southwest winds at least for
another week...
possibly longer. I wonder if they will come in a couple large waves or just in
dribs and drabs as we
do get occasional days of south winds in the next week but it won't be that
mild. Not like today.
This also goes for the thousands of canada geese that we usually get for a few
days. We are
already pretty late. When this winter weather finally breaks, will there be a
massive migration
that comes through really quick? It is been so long that we had a cold winter
like this so I am not sure
what to expect. Anyone remember the winter of 1993-94 which was comparable to
this winter
as far as the Great Lakes ice and cold?
On Tuesday, March 11, 2014 12:08 PM, Anne Marie Johnson
annemariejohn...@frontiernet.net wrote:
A flock of Snow Geese just flew over Brooktondale valley from south to north.
Anne Marie Johnson
Brooktondale
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