Betsy Bloom/Daily News photo Two pair of common mergansers swim by at Six Mile Lake. They were a part of a long string of mergansers on the lake Friday. These large, fish-eating ducks are among the first waterfowl to come north in spring and usually the last to leave.

Next week might finally bring the kind of conditions that would spur migration into the region.

Most of the week is expected to have highs in the 50s and 60s, which is the range most favorable for birds to pick up the pace, if the wind flow is right.

Some appear to already be on the move. The numbers of common mergansers, hooded mergansers, buffleheads, ring-necked ducks and mallards at Six Mile Lake have grown in the past week, along with a few Canada geese.

All are cold-hardy waterfowl that don’t go that far south in winter and can well withstand the short blast of snow we got Wednesday. In most years, they’d still have ice to rest on, but none remains this year and the nights now have been too warm for even the skim ice that had reformed the previous week.

Still conspicuous in their absence, though, are sandhill cranes — they are noisy enough to know when they’re back; a scan of photos from past years had them here even in late March. Absent as well are wood ducks and the sparrows such as song and fox. The two migratory woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and northern flickers, also have yet to make an appearance.

That could change as early as today, with clear conditions overnight — when many species prefer to fly — that should linger through the day.

It’s also still early. Peak migration this far north usually doesn’t happen until mid-May, according to the BirdCast website, which has live bird migration maps online at https://birdcast.info/. This site — operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Colorado State University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst — showed almost no movement in Dickinson County.

Let’s hope the better weather conditions changes that situation soon. And feel free to let me know what you’re seeing out there.

Betsy Bloom can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 240, or bbloom@ironmountaindailynews.com.