"Birds 'heard tornadoes coming' and fled one day ahead"
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It's very unlikely that this species is the only group doing this," Dr Streby said.
Dr Chris Hewson, a senior research ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, told BBC News that infrasound was a plausible explanation.
He pointed out that several birds, including falcons, are thought to use infrasound to help them navigate.
"And you can see from the weather data that there doesn't appear to be any alternative cue that they could be picking up on," he said.
The new study is the first time that migratory birds have been seen taking such dramatic evasive action.
"We know that birds can alter their route to avoid things during regular migration," Dr Streby explained. "But it hadn't been shown until our study that they would leave once the migration is over, and they'd established their breeding territory, to escape severe weather."
17 comments:
Their little bird brains are probably able to pick up atmospheric changes.
If I was a robot, I would be able to do it also.
Not surprising to me. Virtually every dog or horse we've ever owned could "forecast" a a storm at least a half-day before it hit. Don't know how they do it, just that they can and do. My time spent hatching out Peregrine Falcon chicks, as a volunteer with the DNR and Audobon, in urban settings, bears this out as well for birds...they'd tend to sit quietly on ledges if a storm was coming ... while dumb ass me sat on a sky scraper roof, ignorant of it, and soon soaked by it.
Look out your windows and you will see birds everywhere. They simply watch the weather channel when we do - Occum's Razor, res ipsa loquitur, Q.E.D., eythey atchway ooyay oopay ootay.
Allen....I'd guess that you, robot or not, and your rural lifestyle actually can predict bad weather better than most any city kid. It took me a considerable amount of time in the Rocky Mountain west before I could "sense" bad stuff on the horizon...hence my remark about city kids. In August, in the Colorado Rockies, if at 10,000+ feet, you can actually hear (feel?) the rumble of thunder, before you see diddly squat, as the almost daily brief storms approach and pass through. I am very sure you can do the same in your setting.
"...eythey atchway ooyay oopay ootay."
Depends on where your bathroom window's at.
Huh. Birds have arthritic shoulders that hurt when the weather is about to change. I though it was just me.
They do leave before bad weather arrives. Or hunker down, or whatever. there departure is especially noticeable at my cabin, which is in the woods. The birds depart about six hours before storms arrives. The woods get quiet. The deer hunker down as well. And the tourists from Illinois get into their Volvos and Acuras and disappear.
Know what else knows when a storm is coming? Your car. Modern cars can detect changes in atmospheric air pressure and density and automagically adjust their fuel injection systems to compensate.
You probably didn't know that. But now you do, and will be alert for birds getting into cars and driving away when storm clouds appear on the horizon as you rub Icy Hot on your achy shoulders and knees.
Haz...didn't know that about tourists from Illinois. I bet we could get a government grant to study that phenomena :-)
I don't think pigeons have the weather detection capacities of other birds. Where I live they line up on the telephone wires in the worst weather, totally exposed and just sit there, completely still. Maybe that's a survival strategy but I don't get it.
Pigeons are the special needs students of the bird world.
Funding for a postdoc's warbler field research is probably pretty hard to come by, so you need a hook - like this from Mr. Streby's thinly based assertions on the magical weather prediction ability of those cute little warblers:
"With the predicted increase in severity and frequency of similar storms as anthropogenic climate change progresses [ 15 ], understanding large-scale behavioral responses of animals to such events will be an important objective of future research."
Rabel ...I get your point, however, our dogs and horses have always been good at predicting storms. Current dog "Dera" gets all twitchy and looks for cover if a storm is anywhere west of here by 20 miles or so. I can check the Weather Channel...and sure 'nuff, thar she blows.
I don't disagree with that Ari. In this case the claim is that the birds knew that tornados were coming more than 24 hours in advance while the storm was hundreds of miles away. All based on an unreliable light sensing geolocation technology, and the belief that the birds knew which way to go (south) and how far (400 miles) to avoid the storms. Plus, from what I can tell, the fact that while East Tennessee got bad weather, it got no tornados so the birds would have been wrong anyway. Stoopid birds. Nah.
It sounds bogus to me.
Tornados form on the spot. It's just air a day ahead.
Cows lying down means bad weather ahead, if you want Ohio rural lore.
They don't have wings so can't escape like birds.
Rabel ... yeah I disagree that birds or anything an detect Tornadoes a day in advance. What rhhardin said applies, they form on much shorter intervals...I've been in two direct hits. Both times I was just lucky...once to have dived in a deep ditch, the other to have been in a double roofed building that did not completely collapse. The one in the ditch did mess up my car...but it was still drivable in a crippled way.
When you see birds outside your window, it just them looking to see if you have the weather channel on.
When I see birds outside my window they are complaining that my truck isn't parked under their tree so they can crap on it...it is the season (winter) for sparrows with diarrhea it seems.
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