I'm so excited about all the people who are coming to the Midwest Birding Symposium! I can't believe it's coming up in mere weeks. Who cares about the birds, this is going to be the chance to meet so many birders from so many different places. I noticed that David Sibley has been added as a speaker to the MBS but also noticed today that he's coming to the Twin Cities in early October for the RainTaxi Book Fest. I stumbled upon this by accident, it will be interesting to see if the festival advertises this to the birding community or if they are going to focus on just his new Tree Guide.

I've been trying not to notice migration under way. I'm working on three big projects and wanted one finished before migration, but today I saw that is clearly not going to happen. It started with two large flocks of pelicans over the Science Museum in downtown St. Paul. I tried to tell myself, "Oh, it's just practice, it's not happening yet."

Then, one of my fellow park rangers, Ranger Brian brought by a dead warbler to confirm its identification. He had picked it up on his morning route for checking for birds that die from window collisions during night migrationts...it's time already??

Then Woodcreeper (which is a FABULOUS migration site) shared this Nexrad photo on Twitter showing the bird migration going on tonight on the eastern half of the US. If you are on the east coast and reading this tonight, keep an ear outside, you might hear the faint chips of night migrants.

I cannot deny it anymore...migration is on.