An eye on Humberto & Weekend update

Getting super impatient for a hurricane! We need some strong winds to drive birds towards us from the US coast, or pelagics from the Grand Banks...

There's a tropical storm, Humberto, wandering around far to the South and East of us and may make its way here sometime next week:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/


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Weekend birding was pretty good! Went down the shore both days - with high hopes of high concentrations of vagrants.
Saturday didn't quite reach expectations, but a Bobolink, 5 (!!) Tennessee Warblers, at least 4 Red-eyed Vireos, 1 Mourning Warbler, and some somewhat late Tree Swallows were all nice to see. Very different from Ontario!

I returned to the same area on Sunday. It was raining in the morning, so our motivation to step out the door was fairly low. Once we arrived in Trepassey, we split off into groups. Birds were active and everywhere in the deciduous trees. It wasn't long before we were seeing species that I didn't come across the previous day: Wilson's Warbler, Northern Waterthrush... Hermit Thrush.
Then the major surprise of the day was found,. Anne Hughes rushed over to Lancy and I to say that she saw a Prothonotary Warbler. We rushed back and a tense 5 minutes later I re-found it feeding from the tree tops. There's no mistaking the stunning head and underside colouration. We all got great looks at the bird before it disappeared into the alders.

This was about the 14th record for the island. The latest record was on July 31 of this year on a ship 300km offshore. The last one seen by birders was in 2009...

Later in the arvo, at Long Beach, just as we were leaving 2 shorebirds flew right past me. One of them looked odd so I followed it back to the beach and quickly noticed the long wings, long bill, and more attenuated look of a juvenile peep. A Baird's Sandpiper!

Anyway, with the other vagrants being seen on the Avalon it's obvious that there's many great birds to be found. Just got to get out!

PROW from Pelee:

Weather Lookout for NL

Following in the footsteps of BH, here's my predictions & speculation for bird movement in the near future (a few days) geared towards Newfoundland, and also applicable to the maritimes!

Best way to learn how to predict bird movements is to make predictions, learn from the inevitable mistakes, and refine them - if possible! So this is very much a work in progress...


First, I like to check the weather for locations in Eastern Newfoundland. The winds are forecasted to be consistently from the South. The Marine forecast is similar, but has more of a Southwest component to it - meaning that the winds will be coming more directly from Nova Scotia and the Northeastern US.

The question then is, how far reaching are those winds. That's when the surface maps come in handy:

Both surface maps clearly show a lot of wind headed straight for Newfoundland from further South. However, the wind isn't all coming from the desired areas - it seems that the winds from the NE US, and offshore locations are converging towards the island - which isn't optimal.

This animation pretty well sums it up & shows a different & exciting dimension. There's a huge cold front headed SE down through Ontario & Quebec. This front will certainly see birds moving South towards the Northeastern US in big numbers. These birds (and birds already on the coast) have a natural tendency to fly off the coast with the intention of flying offshore and straight to Central & South America. However, my speculation/hope is that some of these birds will be caught up in the air that is moving towards NL & Nova Scotia.

Anyway, this is a mere prediction with no credible background on my part. We'll just have to wait to see what's reported from NS & NL over the next few days. Unfortunately, I'll be busy until the weekend - which will be a regular excuse/complaint of mine for the next 4 years!

Species to watch out for, that are unusual for the Atlantic provinces, are: Canada Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Blue-winged & Golden-winged Warblers, Hooded Warbler, Red-eyed, Philadelphia, & Yellow-throated Vireos, Scarlet Tanager, Cliff Swallows, Cuckoos, Baird's Sandpiper... and hopefully more!

(in no particular order, btw...)

Back Home

I've been back in Newfoundland for 2 weeks now, and will remain here for another 4 years, at least! I'm starting a new degree at MUN, which I'm pretty excited for (classes start tomorrow!) Unfortunately, it may mean that I won't have much time for birding... We'll see

Over the last 2 weeks I have done a bit of birding, highlights so far have been: 3 Leach's Storm-Petrels, 12 Red Phalaropes, a Cliff Swallow... and the mere presence of the ocean.

Black-legged Kittiwake

Awesome scenery:

I've also been paying a bit of attention to the dragonflies & damselflies around town. So far, I'm up to 9 species... I'll write more about those another time!