Major bird migration pulse coming this weekend, much to the excitement of NYC birders

Hold onto your binoculars.Feathers will fly in the skies over New York City this weekend — when hundreds of thousand of birds will pass through the Big Apple on their way south for the winter as part of a forecasted migration spike.The larger then normal avian arrival is leaving bird watchers crowing in anticipation.“I’m super excited.If someone tells me it’s going to be a great day, it really just gives you that extra push to get out there,” Amy Cook, 56, of Park Slope, told The Post.About 3,921,500 birds — including bald eagles — have already flown through the Big Apple this autumn migration season, which kicked off in August, according to BirdCast data.There have been some spikes throughout the last few weeks — including 83,000 birds that crossed Thursday night alone — but birding experts explained that peak migration patterns come in October, especially during noticeable drops in temperature.A perfect blend of cooler weather and strong winds will likely bring a massive “pulse” of migrating birds on Saturday night.“There’s going to be this really favorable set of like cooler air temperatures, tailwinds or wind blowing out of the north and west.

And that’s what’s in the very most proximate sense, bringing this about,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a scientist in the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which collects BirdCast data.Farnsworth described this migration season as an “odd year,” due in part to the dreary weather the five boroughs suffered through in late September as a byproduct of Hurricane Helene.Foggy and wet conditions typically keep birds out of the sky — and pose a danger for those that try to continue their migration south.Between 90,000 and 230,000 migrating birds are killed from striking into buildings every year, according to NYC Bird Alliance data.The dip in migration won’t affect the overall numbers for the season, which Farnsworth expects to be on par with the last few ...