Several people that I ran into today at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and Magee Marsh Wildlife Area (northwest Ohio) asked me when the next big arrival of birds was going to happen. I've now had a chance to look at the weather maps and try to come up with a prediction. The following is adapted from the Black Swamp Bird Observatory's regular migration updates (see: http://www.bsbo.org/Birding/ ) Wednesday May 12: We've reached that point in spring when migrants are going to push northward even if conditions are not favorable. That's the only explanation I can see for the fact that a number of new birds showed up today. Tuesday night there were heavy rains and cool temperatures, and only a brief period during the night when winds were southerly, but today it was obvious that many thrushes had come in overnight. In the woods at Ottawa NWR and Magee Marsh, all five brown thrushes were seen, with numbers of Veery and Swainson's Thrush especially noticeable. White-crowned Sparrows and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks also appeared to have increased in numbers. Once again, the numbers of individual warblers were only moderate, but the variety of warbler species was excellent, and many birders were thrilled by great views of Blackburnian, Cape May, Black-throated Blue, Chestnut-sided, Mourning, and other warblers. As of late afternoon Wednesday, winds are from the northeast, it's raining to the south of us, and rain is very likely tonight and tomorrow. I don't expect that many migrants are going to come in tonight. On Thursday rain is likely for much of the day, especially late morning and afternoon, and the forecast calls for possibly severe storms in late afternoon and early evening. So the migrants that were around today are likely to still be here tomorrow, but if you're pursuing them, be prepared to dodge rain showers. On Thursday evening, even though scattered showers will continue, temperatures will be warmer and winds are predicted to be out of the south for most of the night. Also, it appears that there won't be a lot of rain to the south of us, so migrants that have been dammed up farther south will probably be moving this direction. It's too early to say for sure, but this could be a setup for a big arrival of migrants on Friday, May 14. It will depend on exactly where the rain showers are located late at night on Thursday, but if we get lucky, we could have a major influx of the second wave of warblers and other neotropical migrants on Friday. The day could be a bust, too, but I'm going to gamble on Friday being a much better birding day than Thursday will be. Kenn Kaufman Black Swamp Bird Observatory Oak Harbor, Ohio ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]