USA Is the Winter Over? Birds already flying North!!!

Reporting from New Jersey, North Eastern U.S.A

It should be stated that although this is personal report of what I myself experienced, that I am being forthcoming and honest of what I have witnessed. I understand if you are not willing to me at my word, but do so at your own ignorance. Hopefully links will follow.


January 10th, 2006


As I was standing beside my car, in the parking lot outside of Friday's Resteraunt & Bar, waiting for my take-out order...it was the "squawking" that caught my attention and I looked into the sky and was shocked to see a flock (at least 40-60 birds) of what looked to be either geese or ducks flying. My first thought was, "Damn I wish I had a rifle!", but then I thought Its January 10th, wow these birds are either really late to fly south for the winter, which I could understand it because of the Warm winter we have been having, my guess is that Canada is probably having a warm winter aswell. OR, They think the warm weather is telling them that winter is over and are flying back north...which I laughed at, because we all no that Winter hasn't even really started yet...right?

The flock eventually tapered off from my view, but closely following the flock was a second group of even more birds flying in the same direction. The only difference was that these birds were smaller & flew in greater numbers (maybe 100 or more). From the sound of their sqawk I would say that they were, Crows.

Now I was more curious. They were following the first group. First of all I have never seen one species of birds following the exact migration of another species...but I admit that I am no expert on such matters. It was about 5:00 ish and the sun was already low in its descent. Based on where the sun was setting (in the west)...and the birds crossed the sun from Left to Right, I could asses that the Birds were infact Flying North by North-West!

The next thing that happened was even more shocking... Following the first 2 groups of birds came 1,000's of more birds. I was standing there in the parking lot and the birds continued to cross my path and fly off into the distance, for a duration of at least 10 minutes.
They started at one side of the sky and stretched the entire horizon with my vision tapering off.

When I saw the first say thousand or so birds, I said to myself that these birds were Retarded or somthing...but after seeing the amount of birds that all agreed that it was time to go north, that Perhaps...

the birds know something that we don't...and that Winter is already Over???


I find this VERY strange... Please take notice of the strange migrations and animal behavoir in your area and report them here if you see anything strange.


This is still very fresh in my memory, I am pretty sure that I mentioned any detail, but feel free to ask any questions that you may still have.


Thank you for your time.

I wouldn't doubt it at all...

I'm in NYC, we had like a three week winter that lasted from late November into December. No cold weather apparently on the horizon either....strange. I wonder if it'll last or if a bitter February is in the cards.

I'm from nyc also and have noticed winter here isnt as bad as 10-15 yrs ago.the only real cold weather we get now is only in feb.

I'm sure you all have heard this before, but....

This is really wierd!

Today (Jan 11, 2006), as I was walking into work, I heard geese honking over head. As I have always found the sight of geese in flight to be one of the most beautiful things in Nature, as always, I looked up to see a pair (likely a life-bonded pair!) of geese (not enough of a "birder" to ID the species)......

Flying DUE NORTH!

Now I Live in Northern California (USA), and there is no way Winter is even close to being over.

The World as we know it....That's another matter, altogether!

Originally posted by Bhadhidar
I'm sure you all have heard this before, but....

This is really wierd!

Today (Jan 11, 2006), as I was walking into work, I heard geese honking over head. As I have always found the sight of geese in flight to be one of the most beautiful things in Nature, as always, I looked up to see a pair (likely a life-bonded pair!) of geese (not enough of a "birder" to ID the species)......

Flying DUE NORTH!

Now I Live in Northern California (USA), and there is no way Winter is even close to being over.

The World as we know it....That's another matter, altogether!

is it warmer than usual around your area?

Where2Hide2006

I can confirm what you saw. I witnessed the very same in Maryland today. Hundreds of flocking crows and maybe starlings(?). (There was definitely a second species of flocking birds.)

In any event, I immediately noticed that these birds were traveling north...but because I was engaged in something, forgot about it until you posted your experience here.

I will research what are the migration patterns of crows, if possible.

But I agree, it seems way too early.

I'm also going to confirm this. I'm not entirely sure if this is normal behaviour or not, but I'll dig a little deeper.

I live in Northern Ohio literally right on the lake. (Lake Erie is my backyard).

I saw geese (among other flocks) flying over the lake towards the Canadian Border. Typically this is early spring behaviour for the amount of flocks heading north.

Another thing I find somewhat disturbing, and I'll also add this to the thread for a "what if" scenario.. but normally, every spring when the geese fly to Canada, they stop at the Ohio border side lakeside before making the journey. They tend to hang out there for weeks (like, I cant go down to the beach without a huge display of birds freaking out.) But for some reason, they're flying in from the south and not stopping. Which is VERY peculiar. I'll go out on a ledge here, but for some reason I feel they're fleeing the south. Sorta like they got to the southern climates and realized something just aint right and they're flying (without stopping?) north.

Maybe they're giving us a heads up here. If not, I cant explain the weird bird patterns Im seeing in Ohio right now. And I've lived on the lake for 29 years.

But it's definatly happening

Ill do some digging to see if this is on any blogs or explainable..

Well I found something that said March/April for the return migration....

American Crows are permanent residents in Florida. Their numbers apparently increase in the fall with the influx of northern birds and decrease in March and April with their departure.

Source.

If they begin to leave Florida in March, I'd assume they would make their way up the eastern seaboard sometime thereafter...

This is strange...

QuietSoul:

You're FREAKIN' ME OUT!!!


[edit on 12-1-2006 by loam]

I'll edit this post as I find more research:



Research so far:

We are all certainly aware that in North America the weather in spring gets "nice" in the south before it gets "nice" in the north. People who live in the northern U. S. and Canada migrate in droves to the southern borders of the U. S. for the winter. I have heard many conversations, among them, about the right time to go back north. It always seems to hinge around the question "Is it too early"? Migrating birds have obviously also evolved a sense for this. We find that birds that nest in the south migrate early. Of course, the area in which they nest is ready for habitation early. We begin to see the Prothonotary Warbler and Louisiana Waterthrush in the latter half of March. Birds that nest in the north, however, migrate later since the area in which they nest is not ready for habitation until later. Gray-cheeked Thrushes don't show up in Texas until late April and early May. I plant most of my vegetables (Houston, Texas) around the first of March. My dad, I remember, always put the vegetables in on Memorial day (western New York). That's three months later and it looks like birds have figured this out too.

The preparation for migration includes building fat reserves for energy. Southbound Yellow-rumped Warblers (which usually eat insects) are observed on Block Island (Rhode Island) gorging themselves on Bayberries (Wax Myrtle). Long distance runners and other endurance athletes often do a "carbohydrate load" just before a big event.
birding.about.com...

Here's a good article about how they migrate.. and makes mentions of water flights and how some birds have to rest before making the flight

birding.about.com...

(Which they arent doing...)



[edit on 1/12/2006 by QuietSoul]

Here's a question for anyone in the South:

Did your birds migrate further south this year? I'm not sure how noticable southern migrations are, so this is a vague question.

If the southern birds didnt migrate south, then the northern birds would have no were to migrate too. Birds swap nesting/feeding grounds when they migrate.

If the southern birds didnt move, it could be them being either a) reluctant to let northern birds fly in for fear they may lose their homes when it comes time to migrate north again or b) reluctant to fly south for whatever reason.

My line of thinking is that if these migrations are indeed peculiar, we could be facing something either from the north, or the south.

If the birds did fly south, and the northern birds are avoiding the south, we could narrow this down maybe..

Need some feedback

[edit on 1/12/2006 by QuietSoul]

I actually tried to post something reguarding this yesterday as i saw a bunch of huge swarms of birds flying north yesterday..maybee 50,000 birds per group..more than likely doves , finches, grakles, etc... This freaked me out..this is way way way too early for birds to be migrating! not only that, but the plants here are already budding as if its spring already... just so you know, i live in north texas area. The average highs here are normally 45F about this time of year but freakishly its been about 70-80F for about the last month fallowing one of the coldestcold fronts to hit the area in decades!!!!, and its literly been months since we have seen rain and we dont usually have our drought till late summer AND EVEN STILL WE tend to get some rain...but this lack of rain , heat, and wind have caused an insane amount of grASS fires!! i mean people are afraid of their homes burning around here..2 towns by here have been completely wiped away! or how abot near by new mexico having no snow and really warm temperatures too! while just 2 hours north in Colorado they are having one of the haviest early snowfall seasons since they have started keeping record..? not to mention the hurricanes, and weird weather elsewhere.. something horribly wrong is going on! too many things are going hay wire to be one big couincidence...

[edit on 12-1-2006 by bcdefxyz2000]

Quiet soul........... the birds here in texas did migrate south, but some of the birds such as the cardinals that come in droves here never showed up at all.

OK... We need more confirmations...I urge everyone to see if they notice the same tomorrow and the next few days.

This is getting spooky.

Ive been following the drought fires in Texas but didnt pay it much attention till now. Maybe theres a severe warming trend happening in the south and the northern birds would rather tough out the winter in the north?

Just throwing around ideas

I agree, the way the different species of Birds were following each other, and the shear numbers of the groups has me worried that something is going to happen in the south... but mostly because its only January 10th, I feel that these birds were Running Away from something.

Maybe...they sense tension coming from the New Madrid Fault Zone... or maybe the bird flue has reached Mexico and these birds were trying to get away from the virus... or maybe winter is over and they know it before us.

In any case, something is not right ... and scientists need to take a look at this RIGHT NOW!

Lets just hope that winter is ending early. Everything I've research tends to state specific months of travel. I've found nothing about "odd-ball" months.

You didnt mention the southern weather patterns. Things may be quiet now, but maybe the birds sense a huge future hurricane season?

Could be anything.. all we can do now is monitor it and guess..

I'm gonna try and shoot out some emails to bird migration specialists.. maybe we can get some real info here..

~Based on my personal account~
Here in PA, in the past week or so, I have noticed flocks of birds heading north. This is unusual to me, because I tend to feed them birdseed and I never have to break out bird food during January. These flocks were crows and robins. I figured that either they were just coming home because it's not as cold as it normally would be. While in the midst of putting out birdseed, the birds reacted really strange, their chirps were intensely loud and almost distressful sounding(not your normal song like bird chirps) at that same moment I looked up to the left(which would due west)in the sky and it looked to be two planes almost skywriting?!? making a very definitive white X overhead, I couldn't make out the planes, they looked white with silver and not flying in a normal pattern one plane looked really close to the other and almost as if they were paired off one flying upwards to the left and one downwards to the left.

I did some research and found that male robins are more likely to stay put during winter months to have first dibs on setting up breeding territories come spring.

So I guess what I saw was about 30 male birds just hanging out together(maybe a winter long bachelor party? )
As for the planes, who knows.

Here is a link to what I was reading..
www.npwrc.usgs.gov...

Ok, let's not panic yet.

I've been reading a few birder message boards and there seems to be three things mentioned on occasion for this year...

1) migrations seems to have started early in the fall...

2) more birds were overwintering (no migration at all)

3) high numbers of birds counted during the annual Christmas bird counts.

Let's see if we can get more ATS members to confirm some observations.... Maybe even call a few local Audubon chapters...

I'm not ready to say this is dooms day yet.

...at least, I hope not!

I'm gonna chime in on this one also. I live just south of Detroit.

I have for the past few days have seen squirls (sp) doing there mateing chaseing game allready. I havn't seen any flocks of birds as of yet. But the squirls thing caught my attention. I will keep my eyes out for flocks of birds though and report back if i see anything.

One day i will be able to spell. LOL

Zintac

Originally posted by Eden
their chirps were intensely loud and almost distressful sounding(not your normal song like bird chirps)

My first impression is they sound hungry. Just a pure guess...but your presence could have provoked that response, if they saw you as getting in the way of the food. But what would make them so hungry? Dunno.

Originally posted by Eden
at that same moment I looked up to the left(which would due west)in the sky and it looked to be two planes almost skywriting?!? making a very definitive white X overhead, I couldn't make out the planes

I hesitate mentioning this, but I saw this too Monday night... It was already dark, and I noticed it when I got out of my car...

I am not the chem-trail type... But it is a coincidence that we are noticing the same things... This probably has no connection to the birds, but... like I said... spooky.


[edit on 12-1-2006 by loam]