Migration Alert - March 19-25

 The next 7 days look great for migration so I thought I'd write a post. But first a quick recap of last week;

March 8th and 9th were dominated by overcast skies and southwest winds, however the migrants were few and far between. I was expecting this in a way, since there was still quite a lot of snow on the ground and while it did feel "springy".. it was still very much early March. On Wednesday (the 10th) the birds started trickling in though; decent numbers of Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles and American Robins, smaller numbers of things like Rusty Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Eastern Meadowlarks, Turkey Vultures etc... (for the list of daily arrivals check out the sidebar on the right of the page). On Thursday things ramped up, Canada Geese and large blackbird flocks everywhere, dabbling ducks (wigeon, pintail, GW teal, Shoveler) flying around and in the fields... so yeah, a nice "first push" of stuff!

Now on to the future ~

- Mar 20 (Saturday)

Not expecting much. It will be sunny and mild (8°C), so stuff will still be moving, but the winds are predominantly out of the west. 

(Note for all these wind maps I have it set for about 1km up, as that's the height a lot of birds migrate at)

- Mar 21 (Sunday)

Winds predicted to be southwest all day, which coupled with the sunny skies and very warm temps (upwards to 14°C) should produce a good migration day.

- Mar 22 (Monday

Another day of strong SW wind and sunny skies. The tempature is meant to climb to 15°C or something crazy. Birds will be using this prime weather to move en masse.

- Mar 23 (Tuesday)

Low pressure system moving up the midwest of the continent... Bruce should be getting nice S/SE winds all day, which although lighter than the previous days wind, it's still south! Which in the spring means birds for us. In my opinion south/southeast is better than southwest for birding in Bruce, as it concentrates the migrants along Lake Huron more. And while birds will definitely still move with southwest, I think they spread out more (in South Bruce anyway). 

- Mar 24 (Wednesday)

Looks like it could be a great migration day for this time of year. The strong southwest/south winds associated with the low pressure will hopefully bring a new batch of migrants in. There will probably be rain for a lot of the day though, so the timing of that will effect how much we get.

- Mar 25 (Thursday)

More strong S/SW! It just doesn't end! Again rain is a possibly... and this is getting kind of far into the future so who knows how it will actually play out, but if it turns out anything like this it should be another good migration day. 

Just look at these temperatures..

~ Bird Predictions ~

Another large push of early migrants like blackbirds and dabbling ducks should start coming through on Sunday and continue all week. 

I'm expecting a notable increase in the following species; Turkey Vulture, Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Meadowlark, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Killdeer, Song Sparrow, American Kestral, Northern Flicker, Belted Kingfisher, Fox Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-shouldered Hawk, Northern Harrier as well as all the dabbling ducks. 

It's peak time for rare geese in South Bruce (white-fronted and Ross's), so I'm expecting a small push of those species too.

As for new arrivals (as in the first migrants of the species in the county this year) here's my personal list of birds, though some are pretty unlikely; Wilson's Snipe, Winter Wren, Great Blue Heron, Pied-billed Grebe, Great Blue Heron, Tree Swallow, Pectoral Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, Blue-winged Teal, Eastern Pheobe.

In the future I plan on making predictions about rarities... but it's still pretty early so I'm not going to. My one guess would be a euro wigeon in the next 2 weeks.

...................

So, in conclusion it should be a great week for migration in the area, get out there as much as you can. My pick for best days would be Tuesday or Thursday, but the whole week will be good.

I should emphasize that it's important to moderate expectations this time of year, after all it is still March. I'm in no way responsible if the birds I mentioned don't show up.