Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Significant cold front to result in massive migration push???

Well, warbler migration is starting to slow down a bit here in Chicago and in the Midwest generally, but sparrow migration is just starting to pick up, and I haven't seen any significant waterfowl migration (no diving ducks at all) yet. It was almost 80 degreees here in Chicago today. But the times they are-a-changin'.

There is a pretty brisk cold front that is supposed to arrive here in Chicago sometime late in the day on Wednesday or early Thursday morning; we'll go from nearly 80 today to highs in the 50s on Thursday. This will very likely open the doors wide open for the last big push of warblers, and for a really huge push of sparrows, waterfowl, and maybe even raptors. There might be a really neat nocturnal migration tomorrow night, with tons of birds appearing, literally, overnight in some of the migrant traps. Northerly Island and Montrose ought to be rockin', Palos ought to be really good as well.

This big fall migrant push can mean only one thing: Christmas Bird Counts are right around the corner!

I've got quite a bit of travel (work and personal) planned for the next few weeks in about five different states, so hopefully I will post from some new and exciting (think: Caribbean vagrants)hotspots in October.

In the meantime, I still hope to have some other folks step up and submit things for me to post when I am too busy or travelling, but sometimes it's easier to just make something up myself than to hound somebody to send something in.

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