I see you john....How about a weekly coastal report?

[apundt-TX]

thanks in advance.

[John Barrow]

A.P.
Not a lot new to report. Migration still continues on a regular and I suspect fairly heavy basis. As I posted last week, this has probably been the easiest migration year that I can remember. Hard, continuous favorable winds continue without much interference from northers. Last week favorable winds hit 50 mph along the coast and I suspect any martins flying the gulf could have easily made it from the Yucatan to north Texas, Oklahoma or Arkansas with those tail winds. We are not seeing heavy arrivals from weather fallouts this year as in the past. But we are seeing colonies filling out and many smaller and newer colonies getting martins.

I have read a band from my first confirmed two year old male in Corpus Christi this week and believe I have seen one subadult male at each location, but one was through a spotting scope with no vocalization, the other was vocalization in a congested crowd at closing time. I will report any subadult arrival only when I am sure of my identification. And although migration has been steady and heavy to date, I see nothing that would indicate any unusual trend that would bring the mainstay of arrivals at any different timing then in the past. That would mean the bulk of arrivals - increasing two year old arrivals beginning over the next couple of weeks and the bulk of SYs arriving around April 10-15.

Plus there appear to be lots of insects coming in also and feeding is easy right now. How the drought will affect production is a major concern across the country, but not much we can do to change that.

Best wishes to all to the north. john

[apundt-TX]

thank you sir.