In this episode Nick Bonono and I talk about his birding story, his recent trip to Alaska, his Connecticut Big Year experiences, his blog, Shorebirder.com as well as using NEXRAD weather radar to look at migration. Nick is a top birder, has a trip he is leading for Connecticut Audubon to sub-Saharan Africa, and is fun to talk with. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Here are some links and additional info related to the podcast episode.

Nick was kind enough to send supporting information in an email, and here is what he sent me.

Connecticut Audubon Society’s EcoTravel: https://www.ctaudubon.org/ecotravel-home/
You don’t have to be a Connecticut resident to join us! We have many travelers from other states.

My Blog: www.shorebirder.com

For those who enjoy pelagics, for an East Coast flavor:
1) Summer trips out of Cape Cod, where we often see White-faced Storm-Petrel and great seabird variety overall:
https://www.brooklinebirdclub.org/pelagic-trips-2/
2) For World Class Seabirding experience that’s the best on the east coast, go out of Hatteras, NC with Brian Patteson and Kate Sutherland:

As far as the Radar stuff goes:
Here is a primer from eBird – https://ebird.org/news/radar
I like to use the following site to view the maps:
http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/radar/

It takes some playing around with to learn, but a good way to start is to check the following fields:
Product: 0.5 Reflectivity
Background: (doesn’t really matter)
End date: Today
End time: Most recent
Loop duration: 3-4 hours…this gives you a good timespan to see migration in action. You can view the “liftoff” as the sun sets, or you can view the much more gradual “descent” of birds as dawn approaches.

Play with these variables on a night of good migration. Nocturnal migration is light right now, but should get going sometime in August and really heat up Sep-Oct depending on your latitude.

Thanks. If you are able, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts so I can get feedback on the episode.

Thanks.

Ed