Weekend May 8-9: Unsettled Saturday

Friday, May 7: At 9:20 a.m., the guides from Tropical Birding reported that a female Golden-winged Warbler was being seen at #5 on the Magee Marsh boardwalk.

The migration and the weather are both unusual right now. The diversity of warblers has been excellent for the last couple of days in the migrant traps near Lake Erie, and other migrants have been showing up in good variety also, but we still haven't seen the expected pulses of really big numbers. And it looks like those won't materialize in the next couple of days. The good news is that most of the diverse set of birds seen on Thursday will still be around Sunday, and we'll probably have some rare birds showing up as well.

According the current forecasts, a low pressure center will move right over n.w. Ohio tonight (Friday night), with some showers and shifting winds, and as that low moves off to the northeast, we'll have strong west winds developing. Saturday May 8 will probably have cool temperatures, scattered showers, and strong winds out of the west. The winds should diminish Saturday evening. Sunday morning will be quite chilly at first (with temperatures perhaps dipping below 40) but sunny, with light west-northwest winds, so as the day warms up it should be pleasant birding conditions.

I don't expect many songbird migrants to arrive under these conditions, but I don't expect most of the current crop to leave, either, so there should be a good diversity of warblers and others in the woods throughout the weekend. And in terms of larger birds or water birds, I expect the west winds to bring in something unusual. There already have been scattered Wilson's Phalaropes around, and we may see more of those -- or perhaps Franklin's Gull, Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, White-faced Ibis, or other species that are usually more prevalent farther west.

So: unsettled weather on Saturday, chilly but calmer on Sunday; probably no big arrival of waves of migrants, but the total species list for the weekend should be very good. And looking ahead, there may be a very big arrival of migrant songbirds later in the week -- sometime between Wednesday and Friday. More info here as the weather forecasts become more detailed and believeable.