17 April 2024

The winds over Pittsburgh were favorable last night and the birds were anxious to head north. There was high migration over southwestern PA and BirdCast tells the tale on their new Migration Dashboard.

Since 2017 we’ve been checking BirdCast for live migration maps and forecasts. This year they’ve supplemented the maps with a Migration Dashboard that provides a wealth of county-by-county information including expected species each night.

Let’s take a look at this morning’s dashboard for Allegheny County, PA.

As of 5:00am today, more than a million and a half birds had flown over Pittsburgh but they were slowing down. Live traffic was sparser (50,700 birds in flight), they were moving more slowly (12 mph), and they were losing altitude (1,400 feet). This is normal; they will land before dawn.

The count of birds peaked at midnight (graph on left). It was a really good night for April (graph at right.)

You can see an additional reason why the numbers dropped at 5:00am by comparing these two Live Migration maps. At 1:40am the map in Pittsburgh is bright yellow with migrants but a dark hole (no activity) develops in Ohio and West Virginia at 5:00am. Birds stopped flying there because it was raining ahead of a cold front.

screenshots of BirdCast Live maps on 17 April 2024, 1:40am and 5:00am

Who migrated over Pittsburgh last night? The Dashboard shows 14 expected species. (This is a screenshot. Visit Allegheny County’s Dashboard and scroll down to see the rest of the list).

I haven’t seen a house wren, yellow warbler or brown thrasher yet this year …

Did any of them land in Pittsburgh this morning? It’s hard to say. I’ll just have to go birding to find out.

Meanwhile check out the BirdCast Migration Dashboard for your county.

(credits are in the captions. Click the caption links to see the originals)