The neural crest offer a unique model system to study mechanisms of cell migration since cells are accessible to in vivo imaging and manipulation. Although cranial neural crest cells travel through dense extracellular matrix and mesoderm during vertebrate morphogenesis, very little is known how head tissue dynamics effect neural crest cell migratory behaviors. Here, we examine the relationship between neural crest cell and head mesoderm tissue dynamics using time-lapse imaging, computational modeling, and experimental manipulations in the chick embryo. I will discuss our discovery that head mesoderm dynamics vary dramatically in space and time during neural crest cell migration and share our comparison between model simulations with distinct domain growth profiles in normal and manipulated embryos. Together, our results raise intriguing questions how collective cell migration responds to underlying tissue dynamics during embryonic development and our approach offers a framework to consider this in a broader context of development and disease.