Weekend forecast, 5/22 - 5/23

Friday, May 21: Predictions for the migration can't be any more accurate than the weather forecasts, and of course sometimes the latter can be a little off. The heavy rain in n.w. Ohio this morning took us by surprise, as most forecasts hadn't predicted it. After the showers cleared off, birders found a few decent birds in the area of Magee Marsh. As mentioned in the previous post, a Kirtland's Warbler was found on the east beach (wildlife beach) in early afternoon; it was elusive part of the time, but part of the time it was allowing good views, even through late afternoon. It was being seen about 100 yards east from the entrance to the beach (see BSBO map of Magee for clarification). A Connecticut Warbler was found along the lakefront dike between the boardwalk parking lot and the east beach parking lot, and it skulked in that area, singing occasionally, for several hours midday. There were also reports of another Connecticut along the large eastern loop of the boardwalk.

Looking ahead at the weather forecast, it's hard to tell whether tomorrow (Saturday 5/22) will be a good day. There should be good southerly winds tonight, but there's also a strong chance of rain storms overnight, diminishing around dawn. Depending on just where the rains are located, they could pretty much shut down migration. There's also a chance that the rains will be less widespread than predicted now, and that a lot of migrants could come in from the south and got stopped right here, but that's a long shot. At any rate, rain is supposedly going to stop shortly after dawn, and southerly winds are supposed to continue through Saturday and all night Saturday night. With clear skies and light southerly winds Saturday night, there should be a strong movement of migrants, and there may be a lot of new arrivals on Sunday May 23. At this time of the season, such migrants should include flycatchers like Alder and Yellow-bellied, Red-eyed and Philadelphia vireos, Swainson's and Gray-cheeked thrushes, and Mourning, Canada, and Wilson's warblers -- and if we're lucky, more Connecticut Warblers.

So: hard to tell what the birding will be like on Saturday morning, but if you're really eager to see today's individual Kirtland's or Connecticut warblers, they may stick around for one more day. If you just want to see a different selection of birds, Sunday may have better possibilities. There are still a lot of individual migrants somewhere to the south of us, and they have to come through here (or over us) before too long.