Birds on the Radar: Florida’s Other Fall Migration

BirdCast Live Migration Map

When fall rolls around in Florida, most of us have our eyes glued to the radar — not for wings, but for weather. It’s hurricane season, after all, and Floridians have a sixth sense for scanning those colorful swirling blobs inching across the map. But here’s a twist: there’s another radar to watch in autumn, one that lights up the night sky with movement that’s far gentler and far more beautiful. It’s the radar of bird migration, and once you see it, you’ll never look at your weather app the same way again.

Every fall, from September through November, Florida becomes the final pit stop for millions of migrating birds — warblers, tanagers, hummingbirds, raptors, and shorebirds — all heading south for the winter. On weather radar, they appear as vast, circular blooms of movement, sometimes covering the entire state in what looks like a feathery storm front. It’s mesmerizing, a “feathericane” of epic proportions.

Florida’s peninsular geography makes it a natural funnel for migration. Birds traveling down the Atlantic Flyway or across the Gulf Coast rely on our forests, wetlands, and coastal dunes for rest and refueling. Warblers flit through mangroves and hammocks, swallow-tailed kites gather before their journey to South America, and shorebirds dot the beaches like tiny travelers waiting for their next flight.

On any given evening now, radar might show 24–25 million birds in flight across Florida, with nearly a million crossing the state boundary in that stretch. In Volusia County, for example, last night 3 million+ birds crossed, with a peak of over 650,000 in flight overhead. Meanwhile in Hillsborough County, observers counted about 2,076,700 birds crossing in a single night, with peaks around 453,400 mid-flight.

You can see it for yourself with BirdCast.org, a fascinating tool featuring live migration maps, radar, and daily counts of migratory birds in flight. You can even check your own area by county to see how many birds passed over your neck of the woods while you slept last night! For instance, 989,600 birds passed over Indian River County last night (10/15/25). https://dashboard.birdcast.info/region/US-FL

But this migration isn’t without its hazards. Artificial lights and glass buildings can disorient or injure nocturnal travelers. That’s why Florida groups, including Audubon chapters and local “Lights Out” initiatives such as Treasure Coast Astronomical Society and DarkSky International, urge residents to dim lights at night during peak migration — giving the birds a clearer path through the stars.

So next time you’re checking the radar for tropical trouble, take a peek at BirdCast.org instead. You might just see another kind of storm sweeping across Florida — a breathtaking, biannual blizzard of wings.