3. April 2026

A blog by Bill Evans on the search for Lake Ontario coastal "megaflights" in Spring 2026

The picture shows a theoretical scenario where northbound nocturnal songbird migration coincides with weather conditions that inhibit open-water transit. The result would be a concentrated stream of night migrants paralleling Lake Erie's southern lakeshore (east of Cleveland) in a northeasterly direction. The hypothesis is that as this stream clears eastern Lake Erie, it would fan out to some degree and then come up against the south shoreline of Lake Ontario and reaggregate in a dense stream heading eastward. In cases where such a "perfect storm" occurs, the resulting songbird concentrations the next morning in the nearshore coastal woodlands from Somerset, NY to Braddock Bay, NY (e.g., Golden Hill, Lakeside, and Hamlin Beach State Parks) could be extraordinary. The idea put forth here is that this is likely the biggest potential songbird concentration dynamic in New York State during spring migration. This blog includes commentary by Bill Evans about the efforts to document this "megaflight" phenomenon with an acoustic array monitoring avian night flight calls in the coastal region of southern Lake Ontario (from north of Buffalo to Rochester, NY). Nightly warbler & sparrow calling detected from the transect is posted by ~6am and a text alert is available for when megaflights are in progress or have recently occurred..