Decoding Avian Migration: Cold Fronts and Their Influence on Nocturnal Flight Calls (Poster)

Abstract

Passerines respond to a variety of environmental cues during migration. Some research suggests that passerine migration may be influenced by weather variables such as the passage of cold fronts. During fall 2017, we used acoustic recorders at 23 stations to document the nocturnal flight calls (NFCs) of migrating passerines in the Bitterroot Valley. We looked at correlations between the number of NFCs and the daily change of two weather variables that may indicate an oncoming cold front: temperature and barometric pressure. Cold fronts tend to correlate with migration waves and an increase in nocturnal flights calls. In the future, we intend to include other environmental variables including light pollution, cloud cover, wind direction and precipitation.