2023 Spring Weather Forecasts for Migrating Songbirds-Report #5

Dear Journey North Readers,

Migrants have been enjoying this week! As I mentioned in my last report, a large area of high pressure was parked over the southern US, and the southerly winds have allowed migrants to really make progress. Along the Gulf Coast, lots of thrushes and catbirds have been seen, and a birder in Louisiana tallied nearly 400 Blue Grosbeaks! Throughout New England, there were lots of warbler sightings, including many Black-throated-green Warblers and Yellow Warblers, along with Ovenbirds and Magnolia Warblers, and a Blue-winged warbler was able to make it all the way to Maine! Ohio was flooded with 16 different warbler species, and the first Orange-crowned Warblers made it up to South Dakota.

Out west, Nashville, Wilson’s, and Lucy’s Warblers continue moving through Arizona, and hundreds of Audubon’s Warblers were seen throughout California. Southerly winds helped keep Wilson’s Warblers and Black-headed Grosbeaks moving through Oregon and Washington, along with large numbers of Vaux’s Swifts. The first migrants even arrived in Alaska, with a few sightings of Varied Thrushes!

So will the migration flow continue? Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it. On the weather map, you can see a couple of frontal systems moving across the country. These will bring on-and-off rain to much of the eastern US until early next week, so migrants will have to stay put for a while. Out west, those fronts have already passed, but high pressure is bringing northerly winds, so migrants out there will be grounded until the highs move east and the winds shift to the south again.

We are heading into the peak of spring migration in the southern US, and it is just picking up farther north, so no matter where you are there is a lot happening.

Get out and enjoy it! 

Take care,

David Aborn

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

submitted 04/25/2023