I'm doing a bit of migrating myself, these days. We arrived in San Francisco last night after a nonstop flight from Newark, and although we exerted minimal physical effort during travel, we were famished upon landing. The stopover habitat here in the Bay Area is wonderful and comparatively easy, when considering Red Knots arriving in Delaware Bay searching for horseshoe crab eggs, or Neotropical songbirds finding enough insects and berries along the Gulf Coast. We stopped at a Tapas bar and filled up on several delicacies, washing it down with some fruity sangria. A few hours of sleep and we're all feeling ready for our next leg, tonight, which will take us halfway around the world to the north island of New Zealand. Again, we'll be whisked away with minimal effort of our own and (hopefully) make it to Auckland safe and sound, and ready to explore the wonders of these far-off islands of endemism.

In the meantime, though, spring migration is in the air over the Americas, and recent radar images indicate the wave of birds (still a trickle) have begun to arrive from the Caribbean via Florida and the Gulf Coast. Up in the Northeast, blackbird flocks have grown and become regular visitors to our New Jersey feeders, and bird song, despite the bitter cold temperatures of late, has steadily increased and become more diverse. American Woodcocks, which can be heard displaying in Florida as early as December, have made their way into the northeast and are now mainstays of the dusk landscape in our neck of the woods. They, to me, signify the real beginning of spring migration, while I would guess that those living along the coast would use a different measure; possibly large scoter flocks or lines of loons heading northward. We all have our measure, but whatever it is, Zugunruhe is clearly in the air.

For those of you new to Birdcapemay.org, or new to using weather to predict bird migration, Paul Lehman has written a wonderful primer located here, on this website. Take a little time and read through it and I'm sure you'll get a whole lot more out of the migration experience. I'll be posting a few times while away in New Zealand, but when I return (March 25) migration will be ramping up, and I'll use this space for weekly posts on migration conditions, birding predictions, and discussing weather phenomena as they relate to bird migration. I hope you'll all come back regularly so we can experience the wonders of migration together. If you're interested in how to use weather radar to predict bird migration, I will also be posting regularly to two other websites, www.woodcreeper.com (northeast US, especially New Jersey) and badbirdz2.wordpress.com, (the Southeast US, especially Florida).

Good birding!

David La Puma