Hi everyone, For the spring migration season I am going to try to post weekly "migration forecasts", with predictions for the following 6 days. These are mainly focused on southern Ontario, as that is the region I am most familiar with, but I will include comments on other areas of Ontario occasionally. *Please note that these are just my personal predictions & are by no means a sure thing. So if you consult only this to plan your trips, don't blame me if there aren't many birds that day : ) Ontario Migration Forecast - March 29th - April 3rd Overview The breakup of the polar vortex is causing a major dip in temperatures across the northeast right now and migration has basically come to a standstill in the last few days. Things will still be cold on Tuesday, but on Wednesday the temperature will warm up significantly and Ontario will be blasted by long distance southwest winds. This will continue through Thursday, but by the weekend things will cool down again. Both of the warmer days have a decent chance for precipitation, so that will effect migration somewhat. There should be an increase in birds during warmer days, but after that there will be a bit of a slowdown until mid next week. - Likely New Arrivals This Week; - Pectoral Sandpiper - Greater Yellowlegs - Lesser Yellowlegs - Wilson’s Snipe - Bonaparte’s Gull - Great Egret - Osprey - Northern Flicker - Field Sparrow - Vesper Sparrow - Fox Sparrow - Hermit Thush - Double-crested Cormorant - Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - Tree Swallow - Common Loon - Red-throated Loon - Migrants with peaking numbers: - Wood Duck - Blue-winged Teal - Winter Wren - Brown Creeper - Eastern Bluebird - Eastern Phoebe - Brown-headed Cowbird - Golden-crowned Kinglet - Eastern Meadowlark - Belted Kingfisher - Great Blue Heron - Rusty Blackbird - Green-winged Teal - Rarities to look for this week: - Eurasian Wigeon (especially around Lake Erie) - Western Grebe on western Lake Ontario - Rare geese mixed in with Canada and Snow Goose flocks in Eastern Ontario Daily Forecasts *- Tuesday, March 29* The morning will start off quite chilly (-5) in southern Ontario, warming up only slightly as the day goes on. There will be north wind for majority of the day, but the sun should be out. There may be a few birds moving, but overall it will be another slow day in the province. - *Wednesday, March 30* Starting on Wednesday morning, strong southwest winds associated with a passing system of low pressure will arrive in southern Ontario. There’s a decent chance of at least some precipitation through the day, but regardless there will be birds moving. Southwestern Ontario will likely be best, as away from Lake Erie/Western Lake Ontario it will still be fairly cold. - *Thursday, March 31* Thursday should be the best day this week in terms of migration. The low pressure system will be passing over the province, bringing strong south/southwest winds and double digit temperatures to southern Ontario. Similar to the Wednesday there will likely be rain, but it shouldn’t be that intense for most the the day. Expect a large batch of new migrants arriving throughout southern Ontario. *- Friday, April 1* Things will be considerably less favourable on Friday, with stronger north/northwest wind, temperatures dipping back towards the freezing mark, and a chance of snow for much of southern Ontario. There will still be birds around that arrived during the previous days, but it shouldn’t be a massive day for movement. - *Saturday April 2/Sunday April 3* The weekend will be fairly cold, with the daily temperature for southern Ontario being in the high single digits. The skies should be clear though, so birds will still be migrating. Don’t expect a massive influx, but there will definitely be some new birds moving. - *Looking** ahead * As of right now, it looks like the weather will warm up starting around Tuesday, so migration should ramp up following that. In summary, Wednesday and Thursday should be the best migration days this week, especially in the areas around Lake Erie and Western Lake Ontario. Grey/Bruce/Simcoe and Eastern Ontario should see a noticeable uptick in birds starting on Thursday. If I had to pick a day to go birding this week I would say Thursday would be the best bet, depending on how much rain there is. Websites that I use frequently Windy (wind, temperature, precipitation and more) - windy.com Birdcast (good for large scale trends) - https://birdcast.info Accueweather (an easier to read weather site that is normally accurate) - https://www.accuweather.com If anyone is on Twitter, I post almost daily about weather birding related things. My handle is @ONweatherbirder Good birding, Kiah Jasper