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Weather and Songbird Migration March 31, 1998 Dear Students: Spring has definitely arrived here in Texas. The temperature is warm, the Bluebonnets are blooming, and migrants are starting to move through. March 30, 1998 We had some big storms here Monday night, March 30th as a cold front passed. The bad weather during the night--and north winds that followed the next day--made for poor flying conditions. This cold front should have forced migrants to land, as you learned in my report last week. Link to Primer: "Weather and Songbird Migration" Though I did not see any migrants here in central Texas, but the Texas coast reported good numbers of Yellow-throated Warblers, Orchard Orioles, Worm-eating Warblers, and Blue-winged Warblers. What a wonderful combination! Forecast for Thursday, April 2, 1998 So how does migration look for the rest of the week? If you look at the weather map above you can see that the front that moved through Texas on Monday reached the East on Thursday. With the same weather conditions present, migrants should be forced to land, providing good bird watching and research opportunities on Friday, April 3. As the high pressure area behind the front moves far enough to the east during midweek, much of the Gulf coast will have southerly winds and clear skies--so birds will have good migration conditions. Any birds that landed earlier in the week probably took off. Any birds arriving in the area during these conditions can migrate farther inland. In Texas, the cold front shown on the map above arrived from Arizona and New Mexico. Again, the north winds that follow should provide conditions that will force migrants to land. I will be there with my binoculars, and I will let you know what I see. Take care, David Dr. David A. Aborn david_aborn@baylor.edu