by Seth Benz; images courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology
BirdCast Dashboard is a new feature from the Cornell Ornithology Lab’s outstanding bird migration tracking program which collects and merges data from radar stations, eBird records, and environmental conditions. The following data depictions are for birds passing through/over Hancock County on a given date as well as cumulatively for this Spring. More than 7.5 million birds passed through Hancock County as of April 27!
The shadowed area shows historic data. In this first screenshot, you can see that Spring migration is just getting underway and the peak is yet to come. However, each night, if conditions are good, will “see” more and more migrants arriving as well as moving through!
Many birds migrate at night. April 15 had the most numerous total, with nearly 233,000 birds passing through Hancock County between sunset and sunrise the following morning.
Another feature of the live website is the expected arrivals of certain species, with charts showing weekly peaks in migration such as Chipping Sparrow (early May), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (late April-early May), Blue-headed Vireo (mid-May), Swamp Sparrow (late April-May), and Pine Warbler (late April-early May).
