April 30: Last night, after carefully studying all the weather maps, I predicted that the next big flight of migrants would arrive in NW Ohio no earlier than May 2. The weather last night didn't look favorable for migration here: winds were from the east, or even the northeast, with some rain in the latter part of the night. But despite that, people who were out early this morning reported an excellent arrival of migrants, with numbers of Baltimore Orioles and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and a big increase in the variety of warblers present in the area.
So why was the prediction so far off? One possibility is that we're reaching the point in the spring at which birds will go ahead and move without waiting for ideal conditions. Especially these mid-sized songbirds, like orioles, grosbeaks, Gray Catbirds, and Great Crested Flycatchers, all of which arrived in numbers today, may be able to migrate as long as they're not battling strong headwinds. It's also quite possible that the winds above 1000 feet were different from what we experienced on the ground - those winds may have been southerly, like the prevailing winds in areas to the south of us last night. Whatever the reason, today was a good reminder of the fact that we can't always predict what will happen with the migration.
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