I recently returned from a trip to Florida, during Hurricane Michael. Luckily I was in another part of the state when the storm blew through. These days of high technology and high-speed communication, humans get warned of an oncoming weather disaster so they can take precautions or evacuate. Birds handle things a bit differently.
We have recently learned that birds can hear infrasound and a UC Berkeley study demonstrated that birds use infrasound to anticipate and avoid storms. Birds are also sensitive to changes in barometric pressure, so they know when a storm is approaching. In response birds may move away from the storm or just hunker down in the shelter of trees, bushes, cliffs, tree cavities, or even buildings. But some birds actually fly into the storm, flying with the wind and into the eye of the storm where it is calm. There is an interesting story about a migrating Whimbrel that migrated around a hurricane. Speaking of migration, you might want to check out Bird Cast from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that provides bird migration forecasts in real time
Typically, birds prefer to fly in high barometric pressure because the air is thicker and easier to fly in. They will tend to fly ahead or behind of storms as they are low pressure environments. This is why you see birds perched as a storm approaches – the low pressure (thinner air) makes it harder to fly.
Of course, a number of birds die due to a hurricane’s destructive power. Some are killed by flying debris, get pushed into a tree or building, get deposited for out at sea and become lost, unable to find food, or their nestlings ejected from the nest. Then, after the hurricane has passed, the habitat might be drastically changed, with fallen trees, flooding, the ground covered in mud, and coastal dunes altered or destroyed.
From Science, referring to Hurricane Sandy in 2012: “Yet biologists studying the hurricane’s aftermath say there is remarkably little evidence that birds, or any other countable, charismatic fauna for that matter, have suffered the sort of mass casualties seen in environmental disasters like the BP oil spill of 2010, when thousands of oil-slicked seabirds washed ashore, unable to fly, feed or stay warm.
“With an oil spill, the mortality is way more direct and evident,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “And though it’s possible that thousands of birds were slammed into the ocean by this storm and we’ll never know about it, my gut tells me that didn’t happen.”
To the contrary, scientists said, powerful new satellite tracking studies of birds on the wing — including one that coincided with the height of Hurricane Sandy’s fury — reveal birds as the supreme masters of extreme weather management, able to skirt deftly around gale-force winds, correct course after being blown horribly astray, or even use a hurricane as a kind of slingshot to propel themselves forward at hyperspeed.
“We must remind ourselves that 40 to 50 percent of birds are migratory, often traveling thousands of miles a year between their summer and winter grounds,” said Gary Langham, chief scientist of the National Audubon Society in Washington. “The only way they can accomplish that is to have amazing abilities that are far beyond anything we can do.”
Hurricane Sandy (2012) did not disappoint. As an enormous hybrid of winter and tropical storm fronts with a huge reach, it pulled in a far more diverse group of birds than the average hurricane, and Web sites like eBird and BirdCast were alive with thrilled reports of exceptional sightings — of the European shorebird called the northern lapwing showing up in Massachusetts; of Eastern wood-pewees that should have been in Central and South Americasuddenly appearing again in New York and Ontario; of Trinidad Petrels, which normally spend their entire lives over the open ocean off Brazil, popping up in western Pennsylvania; and of flocks of Leach’s storm-petrels and pomarine jaegers, arctic relatives of gulls, making unheard-of tours far inland and through Manhattan.”
Dr. Lederer, your post about birds and hurricanes is fascinating! It’s incredible to think that birds can sense infrasound and use it to preemptively avoid storms, especially compared to our high-tech human warnings. The UC Berkeley study you mentioned really highlights just how sophisticated nature’s early warning systems are.
Fascinating insights into how birds sense and navigate hurricanes—truly a testament to nature’s precision! It reminds me of another remarkable biological signal we can detect non-invasively: human heart rate. Just as birds perceive infrasound and barometric shifts, modern tech lets us capture subtle physiological cues like pulse waves through smartphone cameras.
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Amazing article you shared here, It is really helpful.
This is fascinating! I had no idea birds could sense storms through infrasound. It’s incredible how nature has such sophisticated warning systems, far beyond our own technology. It makes me wonder about generating visuals of birds in storm-like environments with an AI image generator to better understand their potential flight patterns or reactions.
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Fascinating look at how hurricanes affect bird populations. The intersection of meteorology and ornithology is such an underexplored topic with real conservation implications.
This is a fascinating look at how birds leverage infrasound and barometric pressure to navigate hurricanes. The satellite tracking studies mentioned are a perfect example of how modern technology is deepening our understanding of avian behavior. For researchers preparing to publish such findings, I’ve found that having a streamlined tool for creating scientific figures and data visualizations can save considerable time. Tools like academic figure creation software allow you to generate publication-ready illustrations and charts from simple prompts, making it much easier to produce clear diagrams for migration patterns or storm avoidance data without wrestling with complex code.
Fascinating read on how birds handle hurricanes — especially the use of infrasound and barometric pressure. I was surprised to learn some actually fly into the eye of the storm. For anyone interested in diving deeper into how different cultures document bird behavior, Chinese ornithology resources offer a wealth of observations, but they require language skills. If you’re looking to build your Chinese while exploring cultural topics like animal symbolism, I’ve found a site that makes it playful: learn Chinese with zodiac animals. Their game-based approach is great for absorbing vocabulary related to nature and wildlife.