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. My predictions are based off of eBird data, forecasts and various weather models (mainly from windy.com and Tropical Tidbits). In spring south winds and warm temperatures are the best for bird migration in Ontario, with north wind and cold temperatures being the worst. So by looking ahead at high and low pressure systems, wind maps and predicted temperatures, it gives some indications of what migration will be like in the next few days. During peak migration seasons I spend a lot of time sorting through weather data, and almost always plan my birding days according to the conditions. Since I am already doing this, I thought I might as well share my thoughts with the birding community. *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 balme me if there aren't many birds that day : ) *Migration Forecast - March 15th to March 20th, 2022* Overview All things considered it should be fun week of early spring birding in most of Southern Ontario. Anywhere north of the current "snow line" won't see massive numbers of migrants until some of the ground opens up though, so patience is required. As of right now, Wednesday and Thursday are looking like the most productive days, as a large push of new migrants should be arriving in the province. Southern Ontario, and more specifically Southwestern Ontario will be the most productive areas. If you're planning an excursion in search of new birds, the counties near Lake Erie will be the best bet (Rondeau, Long Point and Point Pelee should all be quite good). As the week goes on, large waterfowl numbers will start arriving at newly opened bodies of water all across Southern Ontario. Blackbirds, robins and Killdeer will also be arriving in massive numbers. Expect a bit of a cool down next weekend, with north winds bringing frigid temperatures back to the southern part of the province for a few days. After that it should warm up again though and migration will start ramping up. - Likely New Arrivals This Week; - Tree Swallow - Winter Wren - Great Blue Heron - Rusty Blackbird - Eastern Meadowlark - Northern Flicker - Eastern Bluebird - Brown-headed Cowbird - Sandhill Crane - Migrants with peaking numbers: - Red-winged Blackbird - Common Grackle - American Robin - Turkey Vulture - Song Sparrow - Killdeer - American Woodcock - Waterfowl including Tundra Swan, Northern Pintail and Cackling Goose - Rarities to look for this week: - Eurasian Wigeon (especially around Lake Erie) - Rare geese mixed in with Canada and Snow Goose flocks Daily Forecasts - Tuesday, March 15th Tuesday will be the coldest day of the week, with light North/West winds overnight and a chance of rain or flurries throughout the day. Birds will still be moving in limited numbers, however I expect it won't be very exciting or a big arrival day in terms of numbers. - Wednesday, March 16th Another cold night going into Wednesday, but as the day goes on temperatures will rise and the wind shifts to South/Southwest. There shouldn't be any precipitation in the way, so migrating birds will take advantage of these nice conditions to move into the province in decent numbers. - Thursday, March 17th Overnight going into Thursday there will be sustained winds out of the southwest and temperatures staying well above freezing. Throughout the day the winds will continue and the tempature will climb to the high teens in the southwest part of the province. This will likely be the best day of the week for new arrivals and the whole of Soutnern Ontario should see a large increase in new birds. - Friday, March 18th, Colder than the previous days with wind out of the north, however it will still be reasonably warm duing the day. As long as there isn't precipitation in the way birds will still be arriving, though in lower numbers than Thursday. - Saturday, March 19th/Sunday, March 20th Normally when I'm looking at weather maps I will wait to plan my trips until my favoured day is a few days out, as things become more unpredictable once you start looking 5/6 days into the future. As of right now the weekend is looking fairly cold on both days (below 0 throughout the province) with winds out of the north. This means there likely won’t be many migrants arriving, though the birding could be alright in southern Ontario because a lot of birds that will have arrived on Wednesday/Thursday will still be around. 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