Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight

Most songbirds migrate at night, flight speed maybe 25mph for the smallest to 40 for the bigger ones.

Based on weather radar returns ( dots on the map) an estimated 340 million migrants were/are in the air last night, riding favorable winds in clear skies, most coming in from the Gulf of Mexico up from the Yucatán. This is peak migration season.

https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/



Actually, even given such numbers, they’re not always that visible on the ground the next day because they come down scattered pretty thin over the landscape.

THIS is what is forecast to happen along the coast tonight, in the case Corpus Christi: Strong cold front w/thunderstorms. Nearly perfect timing (a bit earlier in the night might be better). Southerly winds pushing birds north over the Gulf abruptly doing a 180 with heavy rain.



Which means if you’re a songbird over open water, your forward progress is gonna slow to little or none while getting hammered from above. This is what Windy.com predicts for Saturday morning; songbird catastrophe.



And here is the predicted migrant forecast for tonight as the front approaches the coast….



If this were a computer simulation, picture maybe 100 million little dots creeping north, then piling up against that cold front and getting scattered all over. Birds don’t get tired, they fly until they run out of fuel. Those over land or lucky enough to make landfall land immediately.

Always a crapshoot but conditions are right for what is called a “fallout”, best I’ve seen in years. In a big one birds are everywhere, practically every bush and tree. Ever’body and their brother into birds is gonna be at the coast with binocs in the morning. Could be spectacular.

The bird population was definitely down in central Florida this winter. Last year I recorded 43 different species within half a mile of our place. This winter in the same area I only got to 32 species with fewer sightings of any of the species. I've read what Miles58 posted and I am particularly worried about the loons going down because they iced up during their migration. We've had three in the lake at the cottage for years and it just wouldn't be the same up there without them.

When I fished offshore in the northern gulf I had birds land on the boat every spring. I know I helped a few get to land and fuel up. I’d feed them bread or whatever I was eating and put fresh water out. Many would eat and drink. You could see them perk up within just a minute or two of eating and drinking. Many would ride the boat all the way to shore.

Birdie, is there much of a chance some of these migrating birds would be flying above the storms?

Birds….throughout the years here I’ve really enjoyed the posts you make about birds and history. The additional commentary that you add is always helpful and I usually come away a little bit smarter. This is another one of those great posts. I hope the tweety’s don’t suffer a big fallout and they have a good nesting season because I’ve always enjoyed the company of our feathered friends.

I hope you take pictures and report on what you find as a follow up to this. 👍🏼

Think about all the hungry mouths under the waves, and then consider on how many birds never make it to shore and consider the job it would be to quantify that! Then consider on how many of those hungry mouths under the waves depend on that twice per year bonus that just drops in for pre spawn protein or pre shell molt protein.

This is very interesting to me sir, thank you for sharing the info with us. My wife and I went to Grand Isle, Louisiana several weeks ago to catch some of the early arrivals. I hope most of the birds make it tonight but as we know, mother nature is a cruel bitch. Here's a few pics from Grand Isle.

It's really moot since the ones that make it to land will all eventually be killed by wind turbines anyway.