Last night there were strong winds out of the south, and a look at the radar
picture late at night showed what appeared to be very large numbers of birds
leaving northwest Ohio and crossing Lake Erie. Today (Wednesday May 13)
there was obvious turnover in the migrant traps along the lake shore in the
vicinity of Magee Marsh, Ottawa NWR, and nearby areas. At the Magee Marsh
boardwalk, there were many more Swainson's Thrushes and Cedar Waxwings than
the day before, a modest influx of Scarlet Tanagers and Baltimore Orioles,
and seemingly fewer Yellow-rumped Warblers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.
Warblers were present again in excellent variety. I was only there for a
short time this morning so I don't know the total number of warbler species
present (I only saw / heard 20 species), but what I saw included two male
Mourning Warblers in separate areas near the west end of the parking lot.
Mourning is a classic late-May migrant and I had heard of only one
individual at the boardwalk before today.

Tonight (Wednesday night), between the high pressure center that's moved off
to the east and a low-pressure center sitting to our northwest, we'll have a
strong flow of warm air coming up all the way from the western Gulf Coast,
and a huge number of migrants should be riding that train northward. It's
not a sure thing that they'll actually reach us, because there will be a lot
of rain in the area locally, and the migrants may be put down before they
get anywhere near the lake shore. But if they do happen to get through,
Thursday could be a very good day all along the south and north shores of
Lake Erie -- that is, Magee and Point Pelee could get equal shares of the
wealth.

Following tonight's and tomorrow morning's weather, a low pressure area will
move past us to the north and winds will probably shift to the north
Thursday night, shutting down migration, so Friday probably won't see any
influx of new migrants. But with the rapidly changing weather of this
season, the wind is supposed to shift around to the south again Friday
night, probably bringing, again, another wave of migrants on Saturday. At
this point it's hard to say whether Thursday or Saturday will be the bigger
day -- Thursday has greater potential, but it could be shut down at least
partly by the rain. One way or another, there should be a lot of migrants
around for birders who visit this coming weekend.

As a reminder, we have regular updates on the migration (as well as
directions and maps) available on the birding pages of the Black Swamp Bird
Observatory -- go to http://www.bsbo.org/Birding/  and follow the links.  We
also have free guided bird walks happening multiple times per day every day
from now until May 25. We hope to see you out in the field!

Kenn Kaufman
Black Swamp Bird Observatory
Oak Harbor, OH

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]