Migrating birds – all of them.

April 26 2016 North America. The northbound, tropics-to-temperate-zones spring migration occurs in such massive numbers that the birds show up clearly on radar. It’s a birding drama you can witness without leaving your seat.

I need to lay a little groundwork here to set the stage: 1) Most tropics-to-temperate birds: warblers, flycatchers, cuckoos and the like, migrate at night to better avoid predators and for navigational cues from the stars. 2) The big surges head north via Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean islands, making landfall in Florida, Louisiana and south Texas; 3) Sophisticated air-traffic radar systems pick up echoes of the masses of birds; they appear in circular blobs around major cities where the radar is most effective. While I understand some aspects of bird migration fairly well, I have a very limited understanding of radar and its capabilities.

At night you can see them by following this link, in the daytime you’ll probably just see weather systems and minor stuff.

All of the above is a little dry I know, well it’s not field work after all. But for me seeing the radar images and interpreting them as a momentary sample of the colossal volume of birds on the wing is thrilling, it’s almost beyond comprehension. On an April or May night, (subject to adverse weather conditions) you may well see images like these below which I saved from last night and this morning.