I knew that weather radar was also used for plotting seasonal bird migration - did not know that weather forecasting models could be used to forecast bird numbers. Makes perfect sense. From Cliff Mass:
Forecasting Bird Migration with Weather Radar and Models
We are now in the midst of the big bird migration time of the year and weather radar can help documents the huge flux of birds overhead.
But even more fascinating, we can skillfully predict bird migration using numerical weather prediction.
One of my favorite sites to check out bird migration is BirdCast, run by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. I really appreciate this group and as an undergrad at Cornell I frequently visited their Sapsucker Woods Wildlife Sanctuary.
One of the wonderful things they have on their website is real-time bird migration maps based on the clever use of weather radar (see below). Turns out that weather radar is a very effective tool for tracking birds, particularly when there is not much precipitation (when the National Weather Radars are in clear air mode).
The map below provides an example: a real-time snapshot of bird migration at 12:50 AM PDT early this (Saturday) morning. The colors shows the intensity of bird migration and the orange arrows provide the direction of migration (which can be determined from the Doppler weather radar signal!). Not surprisingly, most birds are moving northward and the Pacific Northwest is an active migration route. The largest migration is from Texas to Wisconsin. By the way, the units of this map is THOUSANDS of bird per km line per hour. That is a lot of birds!
Much more at the site. Fascinating and now, it adds a new dimension to watching their comings and goings.
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