Fall Bird Migration Kicks Off Tuesday Sept. 12

September 13, 2023 2:14 PM

A major fall bird migration will begin on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 12, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology bird cast. “Bird migration forecasts show predicted nocturnal migration 3 hours after local sunset,” they say in an email blast. Bird cast Folks in the eastern United States states will have a high probability of seeing a migration this evening. May want to wear a hat.
posted by waving (18 comments total)

They're not real. Stop falling for this "ornithology" nonsense.



(kidding)
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:17 PM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fall Bird Migration started a lot earlier than Tuesday. Birdcast itself starts its fall dashboard on Aug 1 every year. Almost 34 million birds are estimated to have already crossed just my county (Cook County, IL) so far this season. You can get specific info for your own area by entering your county in the Bird Cast Migration Dashboard. Here's Cook County, IL as an example. There are also area specific alerts - Here is Chicago, IL.

If you really want to time your birdwatching you need to watch for a fallout or mini-fallout opportunity. Basically if there are northerly winds (as in winds coming from the north - it's confusing and I hate it but it is what it is) that the birds use for a tailwind (I use Weather Underground's 10 day forecast page to see the wind directions). Then what you want is a weather situation that can stop them, typically a rainstorm in the wee hours before dawn (I click through Weather Underground's 24 hour forecasts to see this) and you will get to see more birds than even just normal high migration days. This is because all the birds on your flightpath will get stopped in one place to wait out the weather. It is is bit easier to experience if you are on a coast where changing flight paths is more awkward and it's less available further inland where they can more comfortably route around weather. The birds are also often tired in this kind of situation from battling weather so you actually see them sit still for longer (I'm looking at you American Redstart!).

Regardless though just get out to the edge of a wild area and look. There hasn't been a day yet this fall where I haven't seen something cool. Take binoculars - warblers are tiny!
posted by srboisvert at 2:56 PM on September 13, 2023 [7 favorites]

Bird migrations in Illinois are just spectacular. I remember being a kid out on one of the lonely two lane blacktops, nothing in sight but fallow fields to the horizon with the occasional thin break of bare boned trees. Everything grey and then a million birds in swooping constellations fill the sky.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:06 PM on September 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

My four year old has been rattled that the Canada geese in our neck of the woods are flying in a variety of patterns other than their traditional V as they get ready to go. She believes they don’t know their letters yet and is using some of the tricks we used when she was learning her letters including quizzing her by making letters with our fingers.

So there she is, on the front yard, vigorously shaking a V with her fingers on each hand. I’m guessing the old British couple who just moved in across the street from us wonders where all the animosity is coming from.
posted by openhearted at 4:24 PM on September 13, 2023 [13 favorites]

Shorebirds that breed in the Arctic wind up in New Jersey on their way back south to their wintering grounds in August. They are experts in getting the job done. Fall migration hits its peak here in mid to late September, with warblers and other passerines moving through. October, on the other hand, sees the peak of raptor migration. If you ever want to see a boatload of raptors, head to Cape May, New Jersey, during the first few weeks of October.
posted by mollweide at 5:07 PM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Here's a direct link to Birdcast's current migration map. That front page will update itself every so often, do if you click on in a few days it will be reasonably up to date. All I know is that I'm happy I can get out tomorrow and Friday morning here in New Jersey.
posted by mollweide at 5:17 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks, waving, for posting this. Just one more thing. Spring migration has passed the east coast by the past two years, with weather favoring the central flyways. It really does look the next few days are the east coast's time to shine for migration this fall!
posted by mollweide at 5:33 PM on September 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I remember sitting on the porch one day in Manchester, Connecticut (early 80s?) and seeing an enormous, thick line of birds flying past. I would have said it went on and on for more than an hour but no idea if that is true. I’ve seen other large flocks of birds but nothing like that one particular time.
posted by Glinn at 5:40 PM on September 13, 2023

Glinn, it was probably a mixed flock of blackbirds - red winged blackbirds, starlings, and grackles - heading back to a winter roost. I used to see that all the time in college in New Brunswick, NJ, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, with birds heading back to their roost in the marsh along the Raritan River, flowing through the sky like a river.
posted by mollweide at 5:50 PM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Remember, lights out for birds! Encourage your neighbours and municipalities to turn off non-essential lights at night during different times of the year.

Also encourage neighbours and municipalities to apply marking film like Feather Friendly to avoid bird strikes.

We can all help birds get where they're going with a little effort :-)
posted by Calzephyr at 6:59 PM on September 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

My bird of the day is the Northern Perula. I discovered it exists while chasing down a typo in a dataset I'm working with, and realized that I have somehow never heard of it despite it ranging across most of the places I've lived. It is also a very pretty birb. Quest accepted...
posted by kaibutsu at 8:08 PM on September 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

The raptor migration is already well underway. I volunteer with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, and our hawk watch season started in mid-August. Peak is usually mid-September -- October.

You can keep up with our daily hawk count here.
posted by gingerbeer at 8:38 PM on September 13, 2023

Just this morning I was discussing the logistics of the Fall Bird Count for my county (on Sept 30). I studied the Warbler Guide this spring, but fall plumage is something else! I have a few hotspots that are great for warblers (and flycatchers, but those are even harder) that I’ve been visiting every day. Migration is so exciting! This weekend I’m going to Florida to see the first ABA Gray Gull, if it’ll stay that long (it’s been around for weeks though, so chances are good).
posted by oomny at 11:06 AM on September 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

My bird of the day is the Northern Perula. I discovered it exists while chasing down a typo in a dataset I'm working with, and realized that I have somehow never heard of it despite it ranging across most of the places I've lived. It is also a very pretty birb. Quest accepted...

That's a tough one here in Chicago. I've seen one in two years of intense effort birding my local patches. It was pretty funny though. I was at Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary which is Chicago's premier birding spot as it is wild spot that sticks out into the lake so it is great migrant trap. There's a little water feature on the edge of one of a wooded area with the most minimal trickle of fresh water that attracts all the migratory warblers and there is typically 10+ photographers with $15K+ camera setups all there to photograph whatever shows up. The shutter noises are constant and sound like quiet machine guns. Anyway, they were all setup and were photographing a chickadee (super common bird all year round here and most even hand feed) and I looked up and just 10 feet away from the water feature was a Northern Parula that nobody had noticed. Perfectly perched on a nude branch and in great light. I got a few shots with my $300 bridge camera and then it flew away.
posted by srboisvert at 11:40 AM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've been kayaking Toronto's Humber river for a few years and a cool thing about the vulture migration is that one of the last things they do on their way to the states is crowd around the shoals near Bloor Street to gorge on the dead/dying salmon that wash up there. I like the way that the two migration patterns dovetail so neatly.
posted by brachiopod at 2:27 PM on September 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

This morning was a bust where I went, although a friend had a great day about 7 miles away. Fall migration seems really patchy compared to spring, at least on the east coast of the US. On a good migration day in spring, you've got a good shot of seeing birds wherever you go, but in the fall, it seems like you've got to be at the right place at the right time.
posted by mollweide at 4:03 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I use Cornell’s free BirdNET app to identify birds by their song. It has identified birds here I have never seen before and probably never will, they just don’t show themselves.
posted by waving at 4:50 PM on September 14, 2023

I use Cornell’s free BirdNET app to identify birds by their song. It has identified birds here I have never seen before and probably never will, they just don’t show themselves.

I've used Merlin for this and in the "more details" for each bird it describes where you are likely to see the birds (down on the ground, in bushes, treetops, etc..). Got great views of my first Carolina Wren this way last year.
posted by srboisvert at 7:44 AM on September 15, 2023