As Steve notes, spring 1996 was something to behold and to remember! That year there were no fewer than three instances of the kind he describes--30 April, 11 May, and 19 May--all foggy dawns after favorable nights for movement to our southwest. Some springs lack even one such event, and I've never again seen one quite like 19 May 96.
For those who over-use the word 'fallout' to describe locally heavy generic spring migration, those mornings offer a lesson in diction: Neotropical migrant landbirds swirled like snowflakes in the foggy beams of the Fire Island lighthouse before dawn, dropped into the puckerbrush, then swept along the barrier beaches in astonishing numbers. On the 19th, these migrants entered the banding station's nets mostly on the west sides (indicating eastward movement) until about 7:00 am, whereupon the trend shifted almost completely to strikes on the east sides. It was surreal: Myrtle and Magnolia predominated among a nearly full suite of warblers; scores of Ovenbirds rustled like leaves on the ground; I saw more Philadelphia Vireos in two or three mornings than in all other spring mornings on LI since. My interpretation of what happened was that flocks of migrants departed northward under favorable conditions from points south on the prior evenings, were drifted out over the New York Bight by a westerly component to their tail-winds, then ran into fog around dawn. This coincided with their approach to Long Island's outer coast, and they literally fell out of the sky at this first opportunity to gain land. Under this view, their westward movement was one of reorientation--an attempt to regain their intended longitude, possibly the Hudson River Valley. Like Steve, I remember flocks of supposedly diurnal migrants streaming westward on these mornings. I suppose the question remains, did these originate from the south and arrive by night with the nocturnal migrants, or were they already here or to our north, and did they then react to the local weather by heading south? Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Steve Walter [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 9:40 AM To: 'NYSBIRDS' Subject: RE: [nysbirds-l] Hooded W. at Oakland Lake and other stuff >I was introduced to this phenomenon on May 12, 1996 (if I remember correctly). >Being later in the season, there was a larger pool of insectivores in the >north. There was a dramatic flight that I observed from the Rockaways (and >others did from Jones Beach) which included multiple swallow species, Chimney >Swifts, and Eastern Kingbirds. ________________________________ Washington Monthly<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2012/features/americas_bestbangforthebuck_co039461.php> magazine ranks the College of Staten Island as one of "America's Best-Bang-for-the-Buck Colleges" -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
