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Radar Ornithology (1 Viewer)

O

olivacea

aestivalis
I am very curious as to whether anyone in Europe currently uses weather radars to monitor migration. I recently spent a few hours surfing around, trying to locate European sources of radar data that would be useful, but came up with nothing. The UK Met offers some "real-time" radar images, but these seem to be heavily filtered to eliminate low-energy returns that might be birds.

Any insights, web links, etc. will be appreciated.

As esoteric as ever...
Olivacea
 
Birds Fleeing South Florida!

The first radar detectable escape of nocturnal migrants from south Florida occurred last night. A short loop of the Key West NEXRAD can be viewed at...
http://home.comcast.net/~nwamer/byx081306.htm

Since there appears to be little or no interest among(st) BirdForum readers/contributors in using radar to monitor bird migration, I thought I would pass along a nice web site that shows migration over New Jersey...
http://www.woodcreeper.com/

Later...
olivacea
 
olivacea said:
The first radar detectable escape of nocturnal migrants from south Florida occurred last night. A short loop of the Key West NEXRAD can be viewed at...
http://home.comcast.net/~nwamer/byx081306.htm

Since there appears to be little or no interest among(st) BirdForum readers/contributors in using radar to monitor bird migration, I thought I would pass along a nice web site that shows migration over New Jersey...
http://www.woodcreeper.com/

Later...
olivacea
Click to expand...

There were two radar ornithologist jobs advertised in the UK a month or two back. So I presume it still exists here in a small way.
 
Gotta say I have been birding for 30 yrs now in Britain and had never heard of radar birding, that is untill I came across an American chap sat in a Texas car park with a great big dish going round !
They definatly do things much bigger over there !
Anyways got speaking to him and turns out he was with some uni studying raptor migration, he invited me into his camper to view the screens, he said " there's a big kettle of Raptors forming to the SW and some are now tailing off towards us" went outside and sure enough there they where and doing exactly what he said, bloody hell I thought,impressive stuff.
A few minutes later he said " Iv'e got 2 birds heading this way" two I thought, blimey he can even count them and sure enough two superb Mississippi Kites went over.
To say I was bowled over is an understatment, that day is still one of my best birding moments to date.
 
I usually pay attention to the radar during migration to see if it is worth the effort to get to a good spot. Otherwise I just hit my default birding location.
 
I remember someone telling me who worked with aircraft radar that years ago they used to watch huge radar "clouds" as birds moved out off the Norwegian coast in autumn. However with modern filters this was no longer the case. I guess it would be quite interesting to have such a set up. No idea if current projects are over such a long range or just track local flock movements?

John
 
First, I would like to thank all those who have responded to my initial inquiry about the potential and resources for tracking bird migration in Europe using weather radars.

It seems that the major emphasis on public access and application in Europe is on predicting bird movements to/form particular locations (airports, garbage disposal areas, etc,), or supposedly real precipitation. Since my post I have done more web searching, and I think I have located most online links to publicly available radar images from Europe. Unfortunately, all that I have found appear to be filtered, and so cannot depict nocturnal migrants. Most types of diurnal migrants apparently fly too low, using visual navigation, to be show up on the raw images of weather radars.

Darn! I was hoping to be able to see large flights headed to the UK over the North Sea...

Later...
olivacea
 
Radar arrival

During the testing of some radar kit at Gibraltar Point Bird Observatory in Lincolnshire, I took the following hazy photos of the arrival of some migrants. We then stepped outside the van to hear a big arrival of Redwing. Very nice indeed!

Mark Grantham
BTO Ringing Unit

Chris D said:
I've seen some great images of massive waves approaching our Gulf Coast.
Click to expand...
 

Attachments

  • thrush arrival.bmp
    846.1 KB · Views: 178
Eastern US Radar Loop

The past few days has brought the first major movement of nocturnal migrants in the eastern United States this autumn. This, of course, corresponds to the passage of a relatively strong cold front. A loop of composite radar images showing the 02:00 UTC conditions on 26-31 August can be viewed at...
http://home.comcast.net/~badbirdz/0806loop1.htm

Later...
 
There is a Yahoo group called 'vismig' that deals with visible migration watching in the UK. Some postings have referred to continental radar studies so I will look back and try to find the references in case they are additional to what you have already.

Steve
 
Radars for Bird-flock detection

I would like to know commercial radars for bird-flock detection.

I would like something good. small and cheap ;-)

Something to connect to a PC and/or a webcam.

Thanks a lot

Juan
 
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