A NW Progression With A Sprinkle Down South

This is the radar from 5:00pm last night to 8:30am this morning.

Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.

Small pulses of birds could be seen traveling SE->NW throughout the state on radar. According to Miami and Key West radars migrants did fly but not in big numbers. Miami radar shows some arrivals during the early morning hours (3-6a.m.) checking true-and-tried migrant traps such as Cape FL, Matheson, Oleta River, John U Lloyd, West Lake/Anne Kolb, Evergreen Cemetery and Hugh Taylor will be your best chance of seeing migrants. Inland locations should also see some activity as east winds would have carried some of the migrants inland. With the timing of the arrivals we expect more birds at coastal migrant traps rather than inland locations. Key West seemed to be the same scenario. Birds were making landfall in the early morning hours as some continued to fly NW. Overall birding in the southern peninsula should be better than in the last few days. Moving into April we expect more diversity out of these arrivals than in weeks past.

Farther up the peninsula birds that overshot us down here should arrive early morning to late morning. Birds departed out Miami with a general NW heading which should carry these migrants to the west coast from Sarasota north. Returns picked up by radar were not moving at a high rate of speed so expect this movement to be more of a passerine push. A large roost ring is easily visible in the last frames of the morning in the vicinity of Little Manatee River SP as well as a smaller roost ring on the east side of the state. The second roost ring seems to be just north of Three Forks Marsh Conservation Area. Are there any birders that can confirm or deny this? Please leave a comment.

Radar returns were quite thick over the Tallahassee radar as well the Moody Air Force Base, GA Radar. Birds should be expected in areas north of these two radar sites today. Winds were favorable for migrants to move into the area with a tailwind but then a wind shift occurred to the N- NE. If birds were aloft they couldn’t have gone too far north.

Please leave your comments as this are the best way to learn collectively from the radar images we are looking at. Lots of readers pass thru every day but very few reports are submitted. With the help of all of you that visit the site on a daily basis we can better improve the interpretations that we post. To all of our Miami peeps; where are you? Make your presence know badbirderz 🙂

Nature is Awesome,
Angel and Mariel