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Dr. Jeff Wells is the Senior Scientist for the Boreal Songbird Initiative. During his time at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and as the Audubon Society's National Conservation Director, Dr. Wells earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists. He is now dedicated to understanding and protecting the land where North America's birds are born and raised, the Boreal Forest of Canada and Alaska. Check back regularly to read Dr. Wells' perspectives on the conservation, migration and interesting habits of Boreal birds. |
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A few mornings ago I stepped out the front door of my house in Maine. It was 5 AM and still dark outside but the sky was echoing with the flight calls of migratory birds. Rainy, foggy weather was causing migrating birds arriving from further north to come down to land as their neared the [...]
Common Loon
Credit: Jeff Wells
I glanced up while in our driveway in Gardiner Friday morning to see the black outstretched heads and sparkling white bellies of five high-flying Common Loons heading north as part of the immense wave of migrants that passed over the eastern U.S. Thursday night and in the early morning hours. Migration is at [...]
Bill recorded 38 Swainson’s Thrush on the night of September 10-11.
Credit: Jeff Nadler
For those waiting to hear whether the predictions made by Bill Evans of a grand nocturnal migration of Boreal birds came true last week, we post below Bill’s update. Check out especially the thermal video image of nocturnally migrating birds– the birds look [...]
We don’t normally post more than once a day on the blog but this just came through on one of the listserves from my friend Bill Evans from Ithaca, NY, about what may be a massive southward nocturnal migration of Boreal birds that will take place in southern Canada and the eastern U.S. over the [...]
Here are some interesting comments I received from my last post about some of the early migrants I’ve been able to record at night above my house in Maine. You can see the original post here >
Michael O’Brien’s comments:
I’m interested in your assertion that American Robin is strictly a diurnal migrant. Perhaps that is true [...]
I started my automated recording station for the season here in Maine on Thursday night, April 1st. Although there were few calls each of the last three nights, the numbers increased a little each night from about 10 the night of the 1st to about 30 last night. You might recall I posted last spring [...]
Doppler Radar
Taken from the NOAA Public Image Library
For most birders a pair of binoculars or a scope can be the best way to spot birds, if not just the naked eye. But there’s another very interesting way to see them from a different perspective: radar.
Most migratory birds do their travelling at night. Calmer atmospheric conditions, [...]
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