Old saltApr 7, 2025
Prof. Sam Lawler
Whoa! I was checking the bird migration map here https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/ (because I want birds to come back! Soooo tired of winter), and I noticed that the bird migration is actually stopping at that band of crazy weather happening along the Ohio/Mississippi Valley right now! Maybe this is a common thing, but super interesting to see.
Live bird migration maps - BirdCast

See real-time analysis maps of intensities of actual nocturnal bird migration, as detected by the US weather surveillance radar network between local sunset to sunrise. Cornell Lab of Ornithology currently produces these maps.

Apr 5, 2025 at 2:01amWeb
Show threadJohn G FitzgeraldApr 5, 2025
@sundogplanets Birds know about weather.
Show threadNicole ParsonsApr 5, 2025

@sundogplanets

Heat domes and early frosts mess up the life cycles of the insects and flowering plants that migratory birds rely upon.

They die of starvation as they migrate.
https://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-and-other-wildlife-responded-arctic-cold-blast

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecog.05495

I found out that torrential rainfall does the same.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2025/04/04/ohio-flooding-rain-weekend-forecast-columbus-weather-nws/82849011007/

I hope this doesn't mean another monarch butterfly die off.
https://journeynorth.org/monarchs/news/spring-2025/021825-when-will-monarchs-arrive

How Birds and Other Wildlife Responded to the Arctic Cold Blast

While animals that winter in the north are adapted to cold weather, not all escaped the deep freeze.

Audubon
Show threadt s r o n oApr 5, 2025
@sundogplanets the winds with this have been pretty strong, i imagine that's a very big deterrent for most of them, super interesting to see it laid out like that for sure!
Show threadGurre VildskäggApr 5, 2025

@sundogplanets
Does that mean that when the weather calms down there's gonna be a big wave of birds heading north all in one go?

It is fairly obvious that they'd do this, when I think about it.

Show threadCat PanderingApr 6, 2025
@sundogplanets today I learned from @marthaharbison that this is called a fall-out and that committed birders watch the weather and drop what they’re doing to go birding when there’s a big fall-out, eg: https://ebird.org/checklist/S46116491
eBird Checklist - 28 May 2018 - Dunes de Tadoussac - 108 species (+3 other taxa)

Submitted by Ian Davies.