Deb,
I am currently doing a daily migrant census of the Shaker Lakes area for my
high school senior project and have noticed the same trend. While I have
recorded over 110 species in the area in the month of May alone and every
single "expected" warbler species but Blue-winged and Connecticut, I have
experienced remarkably low numbers this year and not a single "fallout" day
(my highest day count is 60 species). I know that Julie West and Gary
Neuman, who run the banding station at Shaker Lakes, have said the same
thing about the migration. There simply is not much species richness on a
certain given day, and not a whole lot of migration flux through the region
on top of the Portage Escarpment. There seems to be much more movement on
the Lake Plains, the Grand River valley, and the Cuyahoga valley.
Looking at Victor Fazio's numbers from his 1979 census (available on
eBird), his fallout days of 90, 74, and 69 species occurred on stormy/rainy
mornings with a strong south wind (following one exception 5/12/1979 in
which wind shifted to the north after a long spell of S wind, knocking
migrants down). Please correct me if I am wrong, but the best conditions
for fallouts on the Portage Escarpment in spring occur with the following
conditions.
1) a strong south wind (>10mph) to blow the birds over the escarpment and
not down into the valleys
2) a storm quite late at night to knock the birds down pre-lake.
From my observations so far, I have observed that while we have had several
nights of consistent, significantly strong South winds, there has not been
a storm or wind change to knock them down to sites like the Shaker Lakes or
Dike 14 and they shoot straight over to Canada. On the days on which there
is a wind change, the S wind has not been strong enough to sustain a
movement over the escarpment and they fly down the Grand and Cuyahoga
valleys to sites such as Lake Erie Bluffs or Wendy Park.
Hopefully, such conditions will manifest someday this spring, and we will
be treated to a fallout in the Heights.
Good birding,
Sameer Apte

On 19 May 2015 at 17:23, Deb <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> It's tough for those of us who have less flexibility in our schedules. I
> have to block out birding time weeks in advance and it rarely lines up with
> good weather and bird movement.
>
> I made two trips to Magee and Metzger~an even 100 miles door to door~and
> thankfully both were good days. Dike 14 was marginal and now that it's
> warmer, the ticks there are problematic. I live near Shaker Lakes and that
> hasn't been great in recent years either. The best local birding I had was
> at Lakeview Cemetery, and the day that there was a Swainson's thrush,
> black-throated blue and Magnolia in my yard.
>
> It distresses me that other folks are seeing this decline as well. I hope
> it's just that we're unlucky, rather than the more ominous possibilities.
>
> Deborah Smith
> Cleveland Heights
>
>
> > On May 19, 2015, at 12:15, Linda McConnell <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > I'm glad it's not just me. I took last week off work to bird close to
> home
> > - all the places you mentioned. And saw hardly anything. Very
> > disappointing. I thought it was me.
> >
> > On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:31 AM, Laura Peskin <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Since I'm not an a.m. birder (& no not sleeping -- just busy + our bad
> am
> >> weather), only place have seen migrating, non-nesting warblers has been
> >> magee.  Like cake there.  Nearly impossible at all the other standbys:
> >> Wendy pk., dike 14, le bluffs, headlands.  Weather related I think.
> Also
> >> early foliage this year.  Heard migrating warblers at a # of places.
> >>
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