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Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18382298 04/29/23
Joined: Oct 2014 Posts: 349 W whistle1 Campfire Member
whistle1 Campfire Member W Joined: Oct 2014 Posts: 349	Birdwatcher: What a good post, muchas gracias. I too am a bird watcher but certainly not at your level in terms of ornithological savvy and expertise. I also belong to the club "All of Humanity". Keep up the excellent posts, por favor. Last edited by whistle1; 04/29/23.

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18382536 04/29/23
Joined: Oct 2004 Posts: 50,169 Likes: 1 SE Texas ltppowell Campfire Kahuna
ltppowell Campfire Kahuna Joined: Oct 2004 Posts: 50,169 Likes: 1 SE Texas	Those 30mph winds hit the Sabine Woods early this AM. The only thing worse than a liberal is a liberal that thinks they're a conservative.

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18382616 04/29/23
Joined: May 2001 Posts: 18,348 Likes: 2 S. Utah Steve Campfire Ranger
Steve Campfire Ranger Joined: May 2001 Posts: 18,348 Likes: 2 S. Utah	Any signs of a die off or is it too early to tell? Can they see flocks stall and drop off radar over the water? Carpe' Scrotum

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18383091 04/29/23
Joined: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,939 Likes: 2 Texas L Lslite Campfire Regular
Lslite Campfire Regular L Joined: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,939 Likes: 2 Texas	Also interesting is the study they did on large tiger sharks in the Gulf. During these events the sharks cruise the surface, sipping songbirds off the surface like trout in a mayfly hatch. Mother Nature is hard, but nothing goes to waste. " It ain't dead.As long as there's one cowboy taking care of one cow,it ain't dead ! " Monte Walsh

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18383137 04/29/23
Joined: Sep 2006 Posts: 2,552 A Aviator Campfire Regular
Aviator Campfire Regular A Joined: Sep 2006 Posts: 2,552	Wondering how this turned out.

IC B2

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18383148 04/29/23
Joined: Feb 2020 Posts: 7,319 Likes: 13 Denver, CO SupFoo Campfire Tracker
SupFoo Campfire Tracker Joined: Feb 2020 Posts: 7,319 Likes: 13 Denver, CO	How useful is this concerning specifics, such as Dove migration, or Canada geese migration?

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18383319 04/29/23
Joined: Dec 2004 Posts: 9,743 Likes: 15 JeffA Campfire Outfitter
JeffA Campfire Outfitter Joined: Dec 2004 Posts: 9,743 Likes: 15	Originally Posted by Lslite Also interesting is the study they did on large tiger sharks in the Gulf. During these events the sharks cruise the surface, sipping songbirds off the surface like trout in a mayfly hatch. Mother Nature is hard, but nothing goes to waste. Humm, fly fishing for Blacktips comes to mind...

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight OldmanoftheSea #18383515 04/29/23
Joined: Feb 2008 Posts: 5,735 Minnesota M MILES58 Campfire Tracker
MILES58 Campfire Tracker M Joined: Feb 2008 Posts: 5,735 Minnesota	Originally Posted by OldmanoftheSea So quick question.... When the barometric drop sense of most animals kicks in don't they seek shelter and hunker down? To the contrary. Usually that drop in air pressure triggers a lot more activity and it keeps up until the storm is very imminent. It seems to be common behavior to birds, mammals and fish. The do just like people when a storm is coming. They go out and lay in some groceries until it's time to get under cover. By far, my favorite time to be sitting in the deer stand is when a good snow storm is coming in and it has started showing. Fishing, I prefer to get off the water before the rain hits, and damn sure before the lightning. My wife knows that if I am hunting in those conditions and I don't already have one hanging that I will stay until the end of legal time, and if I am late I have one. Having been through several tornadoes with me and knowing that I've stayed out fishing and ridden out a few tornadoes, she knows severity of the storm doesn't matter to me or whatever I am hunting or fishing for.

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Lslite #18384620 04/29/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Originally Posted by Lslite Also interesting is the study they did on large tiger sharks in the Gulf. During these events the sharks cruise the surface, sipping songbirds off the surface like trout in a mayfly hatch. Mother Nature is hard, but nothing goes to waste. Did not know this, but here’s a link on the topic. 40% of young tiger sharks caught and released off the coast of Alabama had songbird feathers in their stomachs, so it’s not just an occasional event. An inevitable event at the best of times given the sheer volume a songbirds making the trip. IIRC the Yucatán to the Alabama coast is about 500 miles of open ocean. LINK "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Elkhunter49 #18385174 04/30/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Originally Posted by Elkhunter49 Originally Posted by Birdwatcher 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. 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. Great photos, I tried a few with my iphone8 but they sucked of course 🙂 Most of the birds leaving the Yucatán are headed to forests east of the Mississippi so as you prob’ly know Grand Island is right in the crosshairs. Out here around the Coastal Bend area of Texas we don’t get the numbers Louisiana does and we still get hordes. "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

IC B3

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight SupFoo #18385176 04/30/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Originally Posted by SupFoo How useful is this concerning specifics, such as Dove migration, or Canada geese migration? That is a problem. All I’m gonna tell ya is John James Audubon hisself did his best work with a shotgun "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Aviator #18385239 04/30/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Originally Posted by Aviator Wondering how this turned out. Cutting to the chase, a great birding day at the coast, on the barrier islands (Mustang Island in this case) every patch of scrub, tree weeds and brush harbored sundry forest songbirds way out of their usual context. But end of April you can find that any time the winds turn contrary, not just major gale events. No windrows of dead birds on the beach. Most migrants make landfall around Corpus in the afternoon, having presumably took fight from points south shortly after dark the previous evening.This is what the winds looked like around noon Saturday: Worst case scenario from a songbird perspective, gale force NW winds pushing them directly away from land right in the middle of peak migration. No way of directly quantifying the losses that I’m aware of, but it was prob’ly a good day for the fishes. "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18385263 04/30/23
Joined: Dec 2004 Posts: 9,743 Likes: 15 JeffA Campfire Outfitter
JeffA Campfire Outfitter Joined: Dec 2004 Posts: 9,743 Likes: 15	It was wicked here last night. 35 mph winds with gusts strong enough to topple trees with the rain soaked ground. Enough of a wind driven tidal surge to have me calling neighbors at 3 AM to move their vehicles to high ground. Bad night to be flying. Got chainsaw work today. Winds still whipping it up..

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18385513 04/30/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Some photos from Saturday, iphone8s aren’t ordinarily recommended for this 🙂 Two black-throated green warblers down by my feet, headed for mixed hardwood forest canopy somewhere up north. Same chainlink fence, chestnut-sided warbler, reach out and touch distance, same woodlands but more of a forest edge and early succession species. A grainy photo even by my standards but this guy trying to forage in a small mesquite was special. This is a bay-breasted warbler headed way up to the great Canuck northwoods. Up there he’s gonna look for a spruce budworm outbreak, as natural as forest fires, where amid a superabundance of food he can raise as many as nine fledglings, more’n twice the norm. But, first he’s gotta find an outbreak. Tried a bunch of shots, these were the most legible. Most birders pack serious cameras now. This is a minuscule sampling of just three species, at this season the whole barrier island can get inundated. "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18385620 04/30/23
Joined: Oct 2009 Posts: 7,702 Likes: 1 BC transplant to n alberta And... norm99 Campfire Outfitter
norm99 Campfire Outfitter Joined: Oct 2009 Posts: 7,702 Likes: 1 BC transplant to n alberta And...	great info and photos. Norm There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle----Robert Alden . If it wern't entertaining, I wouldn't keep coming back.------the BigSky

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18385667 04/30/23
Joined: Mar 2020 Posts: 3,856 Likes: 2 NC Mountains B BuckHaggard Campfire Tracker
BuckHaggard Campfire Tracker B Joined: Mar 2020 Posts: 3,856 Likes: 2 NC Mountains	Great thread, thanks Birdwatcher.

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight JeffA #18385711 04/30/23
Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX Birdwatcher OP Campfire 'Bwana
OP Birdwatcher Campfire 'Bwana Joined: Aug 2002 Posts: 37,944 Likes: 5 San Antonio TX	Originally Posted by JeffA It was wicked here last night. 35 mph winds with gusts strong enough to topple trees with the rain soaked ground. Enough of a wind driven tidal surge to have me calling neighbors at 3 AM to move their vehicles to high ground. Bad night to be flying. Got chainsaw work today. Winds still whipping it up.. Conventional estimates had it 40 million songbirds over the Gulf at any given time about now, this one-event loss could easily run that high. OTOH for any given species individual birds can be observed arriving over a period of a month or so, observations typically peaking in a given week each year characteristic of that species. But no species puts all its eggs in one basket, so to speak. For example grosbeaks, orioles and Ruby-throated hummingbirds were present in numbers yesterday, but IIRC the first ones over are already reaching Canada already Last couple of years was uninterrupted south winds accompanied by an ongoing drought. I have heard this was linked to an ongoing La Niña occurring in the Pacific. So spring birding was way down too on the Texas Coast, given a tailwind the birds continue on inland. How these same birds fared where they eventually landed given a reduced food supply due to the drought is a whole ‘nother question. Ruby-throats woulda been SOL trying to pass through my neck of the woods. It’s a complicated issue. "...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18387936 05/01/23
Joined: Jun 2012 Posts: 4,611 Likes: 2 Hilliard, Florida D Daveinjax Campfire Tracker
Daveinjax Campfire Tracker D Joined: Jun 2012 Posts: 4,611 Likes: 2 Hilliard, Florida	Originally Posted by Birdwatcher Originally Posted by JeffA It was wicked here last night. 35 mph winds with gusts strong enough to topple trees with the rain soaked ground. Enough of a wind driven tidal surge to have me calling neighbors at 3 AM to move their vehicles to high ground. Bad night to be flying. Got chainsaw work today. Winds still whipping it up.. Conventional estimates had it 40 million songbirds over the Gulf at any given time about now, this one-event loss could easily run that high. OTOH for any given species individual birds can be observed arriving over a period of a month or so, observations typically peaking in a given week each year characteristic of that species. But no species puts all its eggs in one basket, so to speak. For example grosbeaks, orioles and Ruby-throated hummingbirds were present in numbers yesterday, but IIRC the first ones over are already reaching Canada already Last couple of years was uninterrupted south winds accompanied by an ongoing drought. I have heard this was linked to an ongoing La Niña occurring in the Pacific. So spring birding was way down too on the Texas Coast, given a tailwind the birds continue on inland. How these same birds fared where they eventually landed given a reduced food supply due to the drought is a whole ‘nother question. Ruby-throats woulda been SOL trying to pass through my neck of the woods. It’s a complicated issue. Is there any information on the impact of feeders on the birds ? I keep two hummingbird feeders and two seed feeders running. I do it for my own entertainment but it would be nice if it actually helps the birds. ‘TO LEARN WHO RULES OVER YOU, SIMPLY FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE’ Conspiracy theorists are the ones who see it all coming… You are the carbon they want to eliminate ! I’m Uber Deplorable Ultra MAGA !

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18388009 05/01/23
Joined: Sep 2015 Posts: 671 South Central Oklahoma C Caplock Campfire Regular
Caplock Campfire Regular C Joined: Sep 2015 Posts: 671 South Central Oklahoma	Often the surface wind direction and speed does not reflect whats going on aloft. I won't try and go into it but inversions, boundary layers, and low level jets play a big role. Winds may be N at ground; SW at 500 meters, and S at 1500 meters just for example. Its not just birds doing these flights...massive numbers of insects are transported by Gulf Return Frontal movements as well. As such, the birds are following the food.

Re: Gonna be a bird catastrophe over the Gulf tonight Birdwatcher #18388030 05/01/23
Joined: Dec 2013 Posts: 14,815 Likes: 5 J JoeBob Campfire Outfitter
JoeBob Campfire Outfitter J Joined: Dec 2013 Posts: 14,815 Likes: 5	Hummingbirds must have a memory. I’ve had a feeder up for two years but the one from last year was toast at the end of year and I was late in getting one up this year. A month or so ago I started noticing a few coming up to the spot hovering and looking for the feeder. I finally got around to putting one up three or four days ago and had birds on it within five or ten minutes.

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