What You Don’t See At Night—Millions of Birds In Flight Over MN!

Those of us in Minnesota who appreciate wildlife are typically pretty excited to see the birds slowly come back in the spring.

Whether you love seeing hummingbirds, cardinals, or those beautiful orange orioles, when those birds return home, we all get a little bit excited to see them.

But I've never stopped to think about the unbelievable number of birds that are migrating overhead while we sleep. The numbers are extremely high this time of year, and you won't believe the numbers from last night alone!

BIRDS ARE ON THE MOVE 

I went to a migration website today called BirdCast. Birdcast shows the migration of birds in flight, and gives you an explanation of how to use the chart that you are seeing, and measures things like:

• Birds in flight
• Flight directions and speed of the birds as a whole
• The altitude at which the birds are flying
• The types of birds that typically migrate during specific times of the year in our region
• Total number of birds that have crossed overhead

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

I just assumed that most birds were migrating across the US during the day, but I learned that most of them usually begin to migrate just after sunset, and the greatest number are in flight two to three hours later. So while you sleep, birds are taking flight and finding their way back to Minnesota.

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ALTITUDE

Flying anywhere between 1200 and 10,000 feet above us, between the hours of 9 pm and early this morning, approximately 7 million birds flew overhead last night. Although the speed of the birds was around 20 miles per hour at 9 pm, it peaked at 55 miles per hour around 5:20 am!  (I'm assuming that, like us, the more traffic there is, the faster they go.)

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WHAT TYPES OF BIRDS ARE MIGRATING RIGHT NOW?

According to BirdCast, the types of birds flying overhead could be a wide variety of birds, including:

• Baltimore Orioles
• Gray Catbirds
• Common Yellowthroats
• Nashville Warblers
• Least Flycatchers
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak
• American Redstarts
• Tennessee Warblers
• Northern House Wrens
• Swainson's Thrush
• Ovenbirds
• Black-and-white Warblers
• Yellow-rumped Warblers
• Great Crested Flycatchers

 LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH BIRD

You can also click on each bird type on the list and learn all kinds of facts about them. Things like: Is there a concern for their well-being? What kind of songs do they sing? You can even see photos of each species at different stages of life, and learn all about the individual birds that are migrating overhead.

As of May 13th, the estimated total number of birds that have fully crossed Stearns County, Minnesota is 39,202,000 birds so far!!!! Take a look at your county, and you can learn so much about what happens overhead during migration season. It's fascinating!