Arriving this week?

Well, the calendar says March 8 but you couldn't blame someone if they looked out their window and called you a liar! Brandon has been all over the medium range forecast and you'll see that we are in for more below average temperatures before being totally ready to declare spring has arrived.

Arriving this week? Sandhill Crane

That being said it IS the second week of March and the show must go on! According to spring arrival dates I calculated using eBird data, 16 species typically start making their mass arrival into Ontario this week:

08 March -	Ring-necked Duck
09 March -	Horned Grebe
	Sandhill Crane
10 March -	Ross's Goose
	Eurasian Wigeon
	Northern Shoveler
	Green-winged Teal
	Killdeer
	American Robin
11 March -	Red-shouldered Hawk
	Little Gull
12 March -	American Woodcock
13 March -	Merlin
14 March -	Turkey Vulture
	Northern Harrier
	Song Sparrow

I'd say however that we're probably a week behind and can more realistically expect to see some of the birds that normally arrive in the first week of March like Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles. Looking at eBird we're actually not too far behind where we were last year, but well behind 2012 for those species:

However, with spring migration things can change quickly, even yesterday with warmer (average) temperatures and a light south wind birds were moving (a couple hawks at Beamer, blackbirds along Lake Erie, an influx of robins near my house) so something should happen in the next couple days! If we ever get a real blast of warm air and south winds things could get pretty exciting pretty quickly!