What does more than a Billion migrating birds look like? (Snow Goose photo by Paul Konrad.) A photo of the moment when the migration paths of 1,223,200 birds were illustrated on the live feed map last Thursday night, September 25th (courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

Last Thursday night, September 25th, almost 1¼ Billion birds were documented migrating above the continental United States! Only once before has a night’s migration total topped a billion, overnight October 6, 2023, which is now the second highest migration night recorded to date. Real-time migration analysis maps show the intensity of actual nocturnal bird migration as detected by the US weather surveillance radar network. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology produces the live maps that are archived on BirdCast’s Live Bird Migration Maps webpage.

To view the ebbs and flows of the record-breaking night’s migration intensities, you can refer to Live bird migration maps - BirdCast, but at the top of the webpage, enter the date: 25 September 2025, then click on the arrow at the bottom of the map to see how the migration progressed and expanded over time, then subsided during the course of the night.

BirdCast provides birders with valuable information to monitor bird migration with 4 different internet-based Migration Tools, all of which are free to use. To refer to the original announcement, see A new record night of migration for BirdCast! - BirdCast.