Looks like Bruce County will finally be getting some birds next week!
Day by day here's the rundown...
- Monday (Mar 8th)
Strong southwest winds (coming all the way from Texas) are forecasted to start early on Monday night and continue through the day. For Bruce it might be more west winds, so we may not get any "real" south winds until the next day. It's still going to be relatively cold (3°C)... so probably won't be too exciting.
- Tuesday (Mar 9)
Looking good.. fairly strong S/SW wind all day and temperature going up to 11°C(!). It calls to be clear out too, so that bodes well for diurnal migration. Tuesday is meant to be warm overnight too, only going down to 6°C or so.
- Wednesday (Mar 10)
More strong S/SW wind, and another day of possible double digits. A large rain system is meant to pass through at some point, but it's still a long way off.
- Thusday (Mar 11)
Too far away to really know much, but it calls to be the same as the previous few days for the morning, but switching back to N wind and cooler temps by the evening. This will be the end of the warm spell.
~ Bird Predictions ~
Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds and American Robins should show up in decent numbers, at least in the southern part of the county.
Early waterfowl should be moving, stuff like Tundra Swans and Northern Pintails will begin popping up. I wouldn't be surprised if a few Cackling or Greater White-fronted Geese show up around Kincardine.
I'm also expecting a first push of other early migrants like Killdeer, American Woodcock and Turkey Vulture.
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An important thing to note is snow depth. Basically the entire county has some snowcover, ranging from 10cm-25cm in depth. So even though Monday and Tuesday have south winds, the birds have nowhere to go when they get here. I'm talking things like Killdeer and American Woodcock, which prefer open fields and patches of open forest edge habitat. Similarly there will be no mass push of robins until the ground is open. So if Wednesday and Thursday deliver the predicted rain, that could really help things along. According to Windy's snow depth model, southwesteen Ontario should be basically snow free by Friday.
Everywhere in Bruce should see some migrants, however the southern part of the county will likely see them first as usual in the spring. Tobermory and a lot of North Bruce may need a bit of time yet.
So go birding next week!
(Screenshots taken from windy.com)
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