Date: 5/11/26 7:19 pm From: Lawrence Gardella via groups.io <lfgardella...> Subject: Re: [ALbirds] thoughts on fallout morning flight
AOS spring meetings start on the third Friday of April, not the second.
Larry Gardella
Daphne
On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 8:54 PM Drew Haffenden via groups.io <andrew=
<natsp.com...> wrote:
> Peter I do not have specific dates and by the nature of the event I doubt
> it was birded by anyone. But as I recall at least one occurred or at least
> one occurred on the Saturday of an AOS Spring. Meeting and the other
> occurred during an AOS meeting but not sure which day. Both were within the
> last 8 years, AOS spring meetings always begin on the 2nd Friday in April.
>
> On May 12, 2026, at 2:16 AM, Yaukey, Peter via groups.io <pyaukey=
> <uhcno.edu...> wrote:
>
> Very interesting Drew, thanks.
>
> Do you have notes on what those specific dates were? If you are inclined
> to post them here, I will pull up and post the weather maps.
>
> BTW, not wanting to short our friends in the northern part of the state,
> let me also say that concentrated morning flight also occurs in mountainous
> areas, so there may also be opportunities in the northeastern quadrant of
> the state for those who might be inclined to search for spots (or perhaps
> some are already known?).
>
> I know of only one Appalachian site overall, the Allegheny Front Migration
> Observatory at Dolly Sods in West Virginia, where migrants pour through a
> high gap in a NE-SW trending bald-topped ridge as they attempt to move from
> its east side to its west side, barely skirting the ridge crest (so low
> that many are netted). These birds are southbound in fall, and (if memory
> serves) the flights occur on post-cold front mornings with NW winds, such
> that the birds appear to be using this gap because it allows them to avoid
> the full brunt of the head wind as they cross (compared to crossing over a
> higher ridge crest).
>
> A bunch of other sites have been discovered in the mountains of the
> western USA in the last decade or so, the common theme appearing to be
> birds ascending a valley that leads to a gap across a blocking mountain
> ridge. It appears (?) that in some cases the blockage is in position to
> impede intended forward progress in their migratory direction, and in other
> cases is blocking a corrective movement that the birds are making into the
> wind (to correct for wind drift the night prior). The discovery of these
> sites has been somewhat shocking, as the general understanding had long
> been that passerine migration was much more dramatic in eastern North
> America than western N Am.
>
> *Peter H. Yaukey, Ph.D.*
>
> *Departmental Chair and Professor of Biology *
> *Department of Biological and Physical Sciences*
> *University of Holy Cross*
> *4123 Woodland Drive*
> *New Orleans, LA 70*
> *504-398-2312 Direct*
> *504-394-7744 Main*
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* <ALbirds...> <ALbirds...> on behalf of Drew Haffenden
> via groups.io<andrew...>
> *Sent:* Sunday, May 10, 2026 8:51 PM
> *To:* <ALbirds...> <ALbirds...>
> *Subject:* Re: [ALbirds] thoughts on fallout morning flight
>
> You don't often get email from <andrew...> Learn why this
> is important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification> > We have had a couple of events on Dauphin Island of thousands of migrants
> moving west to east along the main thoroughfare mid morning in Spring
> suggesting the main landing area was the uninhabited and treeless far west
> and the birds chose to overnight or whatever remained of the night to rest
> and recover the continue east on rather than cross the last 4 miles to the
> mainland. That end of the island would not be a preferred landing area due
> to its treeless habitat, though well vegetated with dune plants and swale
> shrubs.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Drew Haffenden
> ------------------------------
> *From:* <ALbirds...> <ALbirds...> on behalf of Lucy & Bob
> Email via groups.io <RobertADuncan...>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 11, 2026 11:15:17 AM
> *To:* <albirds...> <albirds...>
> *Subject:* Re: [ALbirds] thoughts on fallout morning flight
>
> Hi,
>
> Can't help you there. We used to make several trips there in past years
> but although we witnessed the migrant flights, we made no records of its
> composition. That was before eBird days.
>
> Bob
>
> On Sunday, May 10, 2026 at 12:43:16 PM CDT, Yaukey, Peter via groups.io
> <pyaukey...> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks Bob-
>
> Intriguing- I believe I know that gas station. Nice view out over the
> marsh from behind it.
>
> Since you are describing movements on the east side of Mobile Bay, that
> raises another scenario when the bay might funnel migrants. Namely, by
> blocking westbound circumgulf movements in fall.
>
> I know you are keen on Yellow Warbler morning flight- I read your paper in
> FFN years ago when prepping my paper on South Pt. Have you visited that
> spot in early fall before, any thoughts on Yellow or Kingbird movement
> along the shore there?
>
> PY
>
>
>
> *Peter H. Yaukey, Ph.D.*
>
> *Departmental Chair and Professor of Biology *
> *Department of Biological and Physical Sciences*
> *University of Holy Cross*
> *4123 Woodland Drive*
> *New Orleans, LA 70131*
> *504-398-2312 Direct*
> *504-394-7744 Main*
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* <ALbirds...> <ALbirds...> on behalf of Lucy & Bob
> Email via groups.io <RobertADuncan...>
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 9, 2026 3:38 PM
> *To:* <albirds...> <albirds...>
> *Subject:* Re: [ALbirds] thoughts on fallout morning flight
>
> Hi,
>
> Lucy and I have witnessed good movements of birds moving N in Spring and S
> in Fall along the east side of Mobile Bay from our position behind the
> Shell station at Spanish Fort (just S of I-10),These appeared to be
> migrating birds and not foraging forays. This makes sense. It is a good
> location, unobstructed by trees. These were incidental stops while leading
> field trips.
>
> Bob Duncan
> Gulf Breeze,FL
>
> On Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 01:28:29 PM CDT, Douglas Hamm via groups.io
> <dhamm72...> wrote:
>
>
> The shoreline of Mobile Bay is fairly well defined. There are a few
> indentions, at Oyster Bay and Weeks Bay, but otherwise very distinct. Check
> out the Pelican Point hotspot at Weeks Bay. Does that look like a good spot
> to you? Also, would the migrants fly over land just inshore or could they
> be over water but within sight of land?
>
> On Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 01:17:21 PM CDT, Yaukey, Peter via groups.io
> <pyaukey...> wrote:
>
>
> Douglas-
>
> Thanks for your interest. There was a comment on an eBird list (yeserday
> I think) of eastward movement of dozens of warblers along the Ft Morgan
> peninsula. If you can think of any place to watch the sky for birds doing
> so and rounding the southeast corner of Mobile Bay to head north, that
> would be cool to check out. Not sure how the shoreline access is there, or
> how clean the bayshore is (when a shoreline gets diffuse, it is harder to
> predict flight paths).
>
> *Peter H. Yaukey, Ph.D.*
>
> *Departmental Chair and Professor of Biology *
> *Department of Biological and Physical Sciences*
> *University of Holy Cross*
> *4123 Woodland Drive*
> *New Orleans, LA 70131*
> *504-398-2312 Direct*
> *504-394-7744 Main*
>
> [image: image.png]
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* <ALbirds...> <ALbirds...> on behalf of Douglas Hamm
> via groups.io <dhamm72...>
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 9, 2026 12:48 PM
> *To:* <albirds...> <albirds...>
> *Subject:* Re: [ALbirds] thoughts on fallout morning flight
>
> You don't often get email from <dhamm72...> Learn why
> this is important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification> > First of all, I greatly appreciate the updates. Keep them coming.
> Secondly, if I can help look for fallouts for you, let me know. I am
> retired, so I can go out any time. Also, I live in Gulf Shores, AL, so I am
> right in the middle of the area you are interested in. I regularly bird the
> areas you mentioned anyway, so it wouldn’t even be out of the way for me.
> You mentioned 4/27/23 in your email. Here are my two checklists from that
> day on the Ft. Morgan peninsulahttps://ebird.org/checklist/S135216722 and
> https://ebird.org/checklist/S135222534. I suspect the outer edge of that
> movement made it at least as far as Gulf Shores.
> Again, if there is anything I can do to help, just let me know.
>
> On Saturday, May 9, 2026 at 12:01:04 PM CDT, Yaukey, Peter via groups.io
> <pyaukey...> wrote:
>
>
>
> ALBirders:
> There was a large fallout reported at Fort Morgan two days ago, with about
> 2500 transgulf birds arriving, dominated by Swainson’s Thrush, Redstart,
> and Maggie. Here is the eBird list
> *https://ebird.org/checklist/S334095331* > <https://ebird.org/checklist/S334095331> > Many of you are probably aware of a massive fallout in rainy conditions at
> Dauphin Island on 4/27/23 reportedly involving c. 50,000 birds passing from
> the island to the mainland, viewed as a skywatch, led by 15,000 Red-eyed
> Vireos. Here is that list *https://ebird.org/checklist/S135307185* > <https://ebird.org/checklist/S135307185> > The fact that the birds in the latter case were moving northward in
> daylight onto the mainland, begs the question of what situations lead to
> fallout birds continuing movement, and what we can do to crack that code so
> that we could witness such events. The weather map for 7am on 4.27.23 is
> pasted below. Another stalled front situation, apparently. That frontal
> boundary is along the northern Gulf coast for the three mornings previous
> to that map, as well.
> In New Orleans, we have large morning flights on the south shore of Lake
> Pontchartrain in FALL, at its east end (South Pt). In fall the best
> mornings are 20-30,000 migrants in 2-3 hours. We have known about it since
> 2002. This appears to be a corrective movement, happening after fall cold
> fronts, with the birds heading back northward in the morning into the wind,
> apparently attempting to correct for wind drift the night before.
> It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that we discovered that spring flights
> sometimes happen there too, with as many as 9,000 birds in a morning
> detected so far (that flight was dominated by Indigos and Blue Grosbeaks).
> We have only seen four or so of those spring flights, but the mechanism
> seems to be continued diurnal forward movement of birds that had been
> grounded in a frontal fallout the night before. They continue northward in
> the morning (against a headwind), low to minimize the wind resistance, and
> get deflected by the Pontchartrain shoreline until they come to South Pt
> and launch across the 5 mile water gap (into the wind).
> This begs the question of whether any of the other large water
> indentations along the northern Gulf have similar concentrating effects.
> Do the birds continuing north want to go due north, or northeast? Those
> with a NE inclination, do they accumulate into a larger flow along the
> western shore of Pascagoula River Marsh, or Mobile Bay, or Escambia Bay?
> I spend lots of time in Pensacola, and have contemplated the shorelines of
> Escambia Bay (and connected features) for some time, but have presumed the
> water crossings were too short to force birds to deflect instead of
> crossing. However, out of curiosity last fall, I searched the eBird high
> counts for Santa Rosa County (which forms the southern edge of the Bay),
> and there is a fall report (Oct 2002) of 1000 Palm Warblers streaming east
> along the bayshore in the early AM, akin to what South Point birds do in
> fall in their approach along the Pontchartrain shoreline. Then, last Nov,
> I tried out a spot at the southeast corner of the bay (the Tom King Bayou
> Bridge), and had 3000 robins heading northeast around the corner of the
> bay, also parallel to the Lake Pontchartrain phenomenon. So, continuing
> the analogy with Lake Pontchartrain, could there be an exodus of spring
> fallout birds around the eastern end of the Bay as well? I haven’t been
> able to free up my schedule on the right mornings to go and check yet, but
> I am itching to do so.
> Bob and Lucy, I know you live near the other corner of the bay; if you
> have insights to bear on this, I would love to hear them.
> Apologies for my verbosity folks,
> Peter Yaukey
> PS- just because birders have not keyed in on morning flights along these
> Gulf bays before, doesn’t mean they can’t be happening regularly. Indeed,
> two of the best morning flight locations on the continent were discovered
> just in the last decade or so in two of our most heavily birded cities,
> within the actual city limits, somehow undetected previously (Bear Divide,
> Los Angeles, and Battery Godfrey on the Presidio in San Francisco).
> PPS- yes, I apologized for my verbosity, and then promptly added more.
> *sigh *
>
>
> [image: Click Image For Station Plots]
>
>
>
> *Peter H. Yaukey, Ph.D.*
>
> *Departmental Chair and Professor of Biology *
> *Department of Biological and Physical Sciences*
> *University of Holy Cross*
> *4123 Woodland Drive*
> *New Orleans, LA 70131*
> *504-398-2312 Direct*
> *504-394-7744 Main*
>
> [image: image.png]
>
>
>
> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> > Virus-free.www.avg.com
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> --
> Lucy and Bob Duncan
> Gulf Breeze, Florida
>
> --
> Lucy and Bob Duncan
> Gulf Breeze, Florida
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Drew Haffenden
>
> <andrew...>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
