[Maine-birds] Re: Fall Migration

I think this back and forth on fall 2015 migration is a perfect example of how field ornithology benefits from input by us - citizen scientists.

I posed the original question here for the purpose of simply finding out if my observation that the migration in the Rockland Bog was 1/2 of what I was expecting was shared by other birders around the state.  

The consensus seems to be that folks along the coast indeed agree that this fall migration was lower than expected.  Some of you went further and said that it was the lowest they had seen in decades.  This helped me because it meant that the low numbers and diversity in the bog was likely due to fewer birds using the coastal zone and not something endemic to the bog itself or worse to my ability to find birds!!

I also checked in with BirdCast and this interesting program indicated that the may have been a massive single night flight over the North East on September 20.  Check this out:

So, whoever said that maybe the birds just didn't make a lot of stopovers along the coast and just bombed by us in one massive flight may have been spot-on!

Secondarily, I was hopping to hear from folks in the western mountains to see if they were seeing above, below or normal levels of migration.  The notion being that perhaps our lower numbers on the coast was offset by higher numbers out west - to essentially try and find our missing birds on another on-ramp to the Atlantic Flyway.  But, so far, only two folks weighed in from the west one saying that the numbers were low and the other that it seemed normal levels.  It would be great to hear from more folks, especially from deeper interior Maine.

Finally - a lot of folks got very engaged by the disturbing reality that year over year we are losing bird biomass and diversity at the continent level and perhaps that explains our fewer birds this fall.  I personally think that both are in play - regional weather patterns this fall AND year over year few birds.  

This circles back to the critical role that birders play as vital sentinels of change.  By watching birds, by counting them, by sharing our observations in places like Maine Birds -- makes us not just witnesses to the decline of birds but agents of the changes that need to occur so we can witness bird populations rebuilding and surpassing past glory days.  

On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 6:01:47 PM UTC-4, BAB wrote:

Total bust in the Midcoast.
 

BAB

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Bruce Bartrug
Nobleboro, Maine, USA
bbar...@gmail.com
www.brucebartrug.com

•The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.  - Albert Einstein

•In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King

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