This year seems to be the best so far (since I’ve been here) for the Spring migratory bird migration spotting. I have seen a few species this year that I haven’t in the 4 years I’ve lived here. Friends and organizations I have followed on facebook during this same time are announcing birds they’ve spotted and I don’t recall the numbers being this large before.

The weather is cooler than the past few years for this time of month and the storm fronts arrive along the coast the same time the birds are coming up from South America and rainy weather here and north of us has held in place for a while.  This keeps the visitors from traveling on. So they’re coming and staying a little while, eating at our feeders and drinking at our watering holes.  You can read a little more about this and see the birds on radar here on the Journey North webpage.  More information on the 2013 migration is found here at BirdCast. Don’t miss the radar of birds heading northward into South Florida.  Stunning!

My personal list includes Summer Tanager, Grey Catbird, Red-winged Blackbirds, Swallow-tailed Kite, and a flock of Pine Warblers along with several others I haven’t seen here before.  I have recently read of Scarlet Tanager and Indigo Bunting spottings in the area but haven’t seen any.

If you get a chance, just sit in your backyard to enjoy the visitors or head over to Dauphin Island where all of the chatter, I’m getting, is coming from.

Enjoy but do it quickly; they won’t stay long.