Birds Fled Area Before Tornadoes Appeared 99
A reader sends a report from scientists who were tracking a group of birds — golden-winged warblers — in the Appalachian mountains. Just a few days after the birds completed their seasonal migration, they did something odd — they picked up and moved again. Shortly thereafter, a series of storms swept through that area of the U.S., which led to a destructive tornado outbreak (abstract).
After the storm had blown over, the team recaptured five of the warblers and removed the geolocators. These are tiny devices weighing about half a gram, which measure light levels. Based on the timing and length of the days they record, these gadgets allow scientists to calculate and track the approximate location of migratory birds. In this case, all five indicated that the birds had taken unprecedented evasive action, beginning one to two days ahead of the storm's arrival. "The warblers in our study flew at least 1,500km (932 miles) in total," Dr. Streby said. They escaped just south of the tornadoes' path — and then went straight home again. By 2 May, all five were back in their nesting area."
So the question is... (Score:5, Funny)
...what ruffled THEIR feathers?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So the question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember a story about a guy photographing animals in an area where a Tsunami hit back in 2004. He said he was taking pictures when suddenly all the animals, I think he said they were some kind of antelope, suddenly looked toward the ocean then the entire herd ran away. He was greatly puzzled until a while later when he was hanging onto the top of a tree for his very life. I know if I'm somewhere and suddenly all the animals start hauling ass I'm going to follow them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So the question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble with stories like this is that animals do a whole host of stuff that we cannot explain, and we connect it to events that happen after the fact.
Situation 1 : Lots of animals are running somewhere. Nothing happens.... they must have just been spooked by something random.
Situation 2 : Lots of animals are running somewhere. There's a tsunami/earthquake/tornado.... they must have known something we don't.
Finding that some animals behave in an odd, unexplained way just before a major natural disaster isn't news - Animals behave in an odd, unexplained way all the time.
There has been lots of genuine research into animal behaviour to try and predict major natural disasters, nearly all of which has been fruitless. Many animals are killed by natural disasters.
Now, if someone actually predicted a natural disaster by using animal behaviour, that might be interesting. Saying that the animals acted weird just before, when looking back, is suspect.
Re: (Score:2)
Those seagulls probably saw the storm.
Re:So the question is... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think flying ~500 miles away equates to a deer running scared from a sound in the woods. If this is the same story I saw yesterday, the birds in question had just settled in after a migration flight of 3000 miles or so total. After one or two days back they up and flew ~500 miles away, then came right back to the same spot. This is way more specific than most tales you hear of animals getting away from natural disasters. It's worth looking into for exactly the reason you said, "if someone actually predicted a natural disaster by using animal behaviour, that might be interesting." Thus why it's a news story at all.
Re: (Score:2)
I understand that.
The BBC had a programme tracking ospreys a while back. A couple of them just flew to completely unexpected places (more than 500 miles from where they were expected), the more normal ones were much more random than expected too. No one could really figure out why they flew to the places they did when they did.
Had there been some kind of problem where the ospreys were not, it would have been all to easy to assign knowledge to the Ospreys.
Also, as I said above : Plenty of animals do get ki
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Extreme low pressure starts moving in, they feel it, move away from low pressure. They feel the low pressure pass, and go back. Its not difficult or magic or even an unknown process. They detect the storm coming in the exact same way the weatherman does. These pressure gradients cover large areas, 500 miles isn't that far for such a thing.
Re: (Score:2)
It only seems weird at the time. After the fact it's obvious what was up.
Re:So the question is... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Also assuming humans use the same style of engine technology for millions of years.
Re: (Score:2)
...I know if I'm somewhere and suddenly all the animals start hauling ass I'm going to follow them.
I act the same way if I see people in lab coats running, but I give them some lateral space in case they started too late...
Re: (Score:2)
The largest number of birds I've ever seen in flight came right before a massive blizzard. I was standing by a river and over it tens of thousands of ducks and geese were flying due south, away from the incoming snow. "Wow, that's ominous," I said, before going home and being trapped inside for several days by nearly three feet of snow.
Re: (Score:2)
...what ruffled THEIR feathers?
According to TFA, they sensed low level harmonics in the atmosphere long before the storms arrived...
"
The most likely tip-off was the deep rumble that tornadoes produce, well below what humans can hear.
Noise in this "infrasound" range travels thousands of kilometres, and may serve as something of an early warning system for animals that can pick it up.
so why don't we start listening for it with our warning systems?
Re:So the question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
so why don't we start listening for it with our warning systems?
That's what I was thinking, also how can a tornado make any type of noise 2 days before it forms? I can understand animals picking up things we can't, deer may hear the rumble of a quake that causes a tsunami, my dog routinely hears thunder 15-20 minutes before I do and looks for a hiding spot, but how the hell does any animal "hear" something that won't exist for another two days?
Having said that the animal kingdom is full of "mysterious knowledge", for example crocodiles in Northern Australia can somehow "calculate" when a king tide will occur, about an hour before the event they gather at a particular ford across a river where the unusually high tide spills over the ford leaving a bonanza of fish stranded on the rocks. Even Attenborough admits he doesn't have a clue how the crocodiles "know" when to gather at the ford.
Re: (Score:2)
Even Attenborough admits he doesn't have a clue how the crocodiles "know" when to gather at the ford.
well, Attenborough died. Which shows you how much he knows...
Re: (Score:2)
I once knew an earthquake was about to hit about 5 minutes before it did. Of course, I have been in several earthquakes, and only the one ever gave me a clue before it happened.
If it matters, which it doesn't, I felt a "pressure" in my head. It grew almost palpable and then the earthquake happened which felt like a logical release of the pressure. A very odd experience. It was also one of the weirdest earthquakes that I ever felt. It was a rolling rather than a shaking. It felt a bit like being on a boat in
Re:So the question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder why they think the noise was the instigation. We know that tornados have significant currents and magnetic fields; and we know that migrating birds have significant magnetic sensitivity.
Is it far fetched to think they might have felt its magnetic effects?
Great observational skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, someone just now noticed that animals can easily detect incoming low pressure fronts and hide from the weather.
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming. Ask anyone who spends some time in nature rather than hiding in some office or school room.
Fish, cows, horses, dogs, cats, squirrels, birds, pretty much anything you can think of takes cover well before a storm, except us.
The warblers weren't running form 'tornados' they were running from low pressure gradients moving in rapidly.
Re:Great observational skills (Score:4, Funny)
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming.
And we're also the only ones that can understand the weather forecast on TV.
Re: (Score:3)
Yea, I'll place my money on what the animals are doing, which are FAR more accurate than any weather forecast I've seen.
Re:Great observational skills (Score:4, Interesting)
[Animals are] FAR more accurate than any weather forecast I've seen.
You see ants moving eggs, maybe it will rain in the next day or two, but how much rain? How much wind? Any hail, tornados? King tide?
You see humans boarding up windows, sandbagging shops, anchoring boats away from the dock, etc, you know a destructive storm is on it's way.
Weather forecasts are pretty accurate to 5 days out even here in Melbourne which (like NYC) is notoriously fickle, but you don't need doppler radar and a supercomputer to match the forecasting skill of ants. With a bit of practice mentally tracking wind direction, looking at clouds and feeling/smelling the (fresh) air will give you a fair idea of tomorrow's weather.
Natural disasters happen to both species, by all reasonable standards humans are much better at predicting severe weather than animals since (at worst) we have the capacity to simultaneously observe many diverse species to make a statistically combined animal/plant forecast. Having said that, even the humble ants will have buried their dead and rebuilt their city in under a week.
Re: (Score:2)
You see humans boarding up windows, sandbagging shops, anchoring boats away from the dock, etc, you know a destructive storm is on it's way.
Or that the weathermen are talking about one like it's going to be anyway. What I've noticed more and more lately is overstating of the damaging potential of a storm. Whether this is because they're worried about people holding them responsible for not giving accurate warning to danger, or to whip people up into a disaster-preparedness shopping spree I can't tell. All I know is the last several snowstorms that were predicted for my area either didn't happen at all or only gave a light dusting of accumulatio
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Great observational skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great observational skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, my experience is that humans who spend a lot of time outdoors in all types of weather get pretty good at knowing when to take cover as well. The degree to which this is a product of direct (detecting that a low/high pressure front is coming and similar) or indirect (observing the behavior of animals) is hard to determine since most of the time their prognostication is based on putting together various barely noticed clues.
"It's quiet. Too quiet ..." Always a sign to run for cover.
Re: (Score:1)
That also works when there are toddlers in the house.
Kids of any age, actually. It's just a question of what type of mischief they are up to.
Re:Great observational skills (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the surprise was how far in advance they detected it. We always knew animals are more in touch with the world.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the surprise was how far in advance they detected it.
Or maybe the storm was well telegraphed.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure it was. It's still interesting that they knew that far in advance and traveled that far. It shows how they detect incoming weather and adjust their behavior to it.
Re:Great observational skills (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming.
Humans can tell when bad weather is coming. We can sense low pressure and it makes us uneasy. One difference between humans and birds is that birds can fly away but can't hunker down in a shelter and ride it out. Other than birds that build in cliffsides, bird's nests are generally pretty exposed. Humans can't fly, but can hunker down in a shelter and ride it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Great observational skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying 1500km is a lot more than "taking cover from a storm" - thats a *lot* of calories to spend, especially right after an already strenuous migration. Pressure changes are common occurrences, so the question is what sort of telltales did they pick up on that let them know this was a storm worth running from rather than just taking shelter?
Re: (Score:2)
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming. Ask anyone who spends some time in nature rather than hiding in some office or school room.
Humans aren't an exception either.
Re: (Score:2)
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming.
Conversely: humans are the only ones who can tell that not only is bad weather coming, but the probability of how much it will precipitate on a given area, and how long it will last and how high the winds will be, etc., etc., etc.
We just don't do it with some built in internal sensor ... yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Good lord how is this modded insightful, it's the exact opposite of insightful unless what the modders are saying is the learned something about the OP's character.
First off it's another one of these "I know nothing about the topic but am going to belittle the science" posts. Secondly low pressure has nothing to do with it. As the article stated there was no environmental changes (pressure, wind etc) at the nesting site the day before. The theory is the birds are sensitive to the very low frequency rumbl
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, someone just now noticed that animals can easily detect incoming low pressure fronts and hide from the weather.
Humans have many unique abilities too.
We are the only ones with the gift to see in dark grey waves of clouds the furrowed brows of an angry gods, whom we anger further by murmuring profane incantations about dew point and pressure gradients. Only we gaze down from our satellites and perceive that the hurricane is looking back. In the magnificent gyres of natural phenomena we may discern an uncanny alien intelligence [nullschool.net]. We alone feel that it is scrutinizing us, judging us, finds us wanting. "We are naked in t
Re: (Score:1)
funny quote (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
> "We evacuated ourselves to the waffle house"
(Waffles arrive) "Ugh...they poured the blueberry 'syrup' all over them. Now I wish I had been killed by the tornado."
Just like people are fleeing slashdot... (Score:1)
Taco could see what was coming and fled...
6th sense (Score:5, Interesting)
I had an idea over ten years ago, that I hoped could save lives and make me money, but I'll never do anything with it, so here it is:
One animal acting strange (as in before an earth quake or whatever) is nothing, but a large number of animals in a specific area, could very possibly be a warning of impending danger. If there was a (well known) web site that you could report your animal acting "weird", or out of the ordinary to, you would have random reports from all over the place, but if you mapped results in real time and saw a lot of activity in a specific area, that could be an early warning. I don't see why it wouldn't work, assuming the "animals act weird before events" theory is correct.
Anyway, if this works and saves lives, remember you heard it here first.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The morning a few hours before the earth quake, she opened the front door and the d
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
No, the fat guy was just coincidence, he had heard the lunch truck pull up.
Re: (Score:1)
In this case the dog likely just felt the smaller P-waves that arrive slightly before the much larger S-waves. The humans likely felt the P-waves as well, but didn't have the same hair trigger the dog had. Cool video nevertheless.
Re: (Score:1)
Given the energy travels through the earth faster than sound, I wonder what the hell kinds of sounds are generated by what earth micro-stresses arriving ahead of the main shockwaves.
Re: (Score:1)
Animals do seem to have some "6th sense" that we just don't understand.
It's not a sixth sense, they have to pay attention their lives depend on it.
Humans can do the same thing if they are in tune to their environment, and of course if their environment is the wild not the city.
The city invokes a singular set of sense, that of predator and victim.
Re: (Score:2)
>The city invokes a singular set of sense, that of predator and victim.
And how exactly is that different than the state of predator and prey that basically characterizes all life on Earth, with the exception of a few very well defended non-predators?
Re: (Score:1)
Predator and prey are the same species.
Re: (Score:2)
Cannibalism is hardly rare in nature.
Re: (Score:1)
Rare enough, and generally it's eating the dead, newly born or lower life forms that do this.
Re: (Score:2)
Or someone they just fucked (by what standard do you call them "lower"? They've got a LOT more generations of evolution under their belt than you). Or an interloper from a neighboring group. Or, or, or....
I mean even apes engage in near-cannibalism whenever possible (usually not the same species, but monkeys and other apes).
Re:6th sense (Score:4, Interesting)
One animal acting strange (as in before an earth quake or whatever) is nothing, but a large number of animals in a specific area, could very possibly be a warning of impending danger. If there was a (well known) web site that you could report your animal acting "weird", or out of the ordinary to, you would have random reports from all over the place, but if you mapped results in real time and saw a lot of activity in a specific area, that could be an early warning. I don't see why it wouldn't work, assuming the "animals act weird before events" theory is correct.
Anyway, if this works and saves lives, remember you heard it here first.
Requiring people to report it would probably be too slow. On the other hand, putting trackers on a couple hundred sparrows in
every town and running it into a large neural net and training it based on actual tornados might get some decent results.
It might be possible to create an actual "canary network" that could warn us much sooner in advance than we currently have
for tornados. If the "canary network" actually worked, we could always move to "phase 2" where we tried to match it to
pressure, inaudible sounds, etc... and create an electronic canary which would be easier to manage than live birds but
using live birds until we figured out exactly how they did it wouldn't be too difficult.
So to prevent tornados... (Score:2)
So to prevent tornados... all we actually need are a bunch of bird cages?
Re: (Score:2)
Predict - maybe. I don't think the birds could have prevented the tornadoes if they had tried.
Re: (Score:3)
Predict - maybe. I don't think the birds could have prevented the tornadoes if they had tried.
Get with the program: tornados come to places that birds aren't. Force the birds to stay, the tornados can't come to the area. African and European swallows would work equally well for this purpose. It's like magnets... :)
Laugh (Score:5, Informative)
This sort of thing makes me chuckle, I grew up around a forest (and a jungle too) and we could always tell when people (or predators) were coming into our area.
The birds went silent or made their warning calls, the thing is you kind of learned those sounds (or lack of) subconsciously.
As we got older we made the connection, but as kids when the birds went silent so did we, listening for what it was they heard or saw.
There were a variety of other indicators for things like seasonal changes (ant nest activity etc) and we learned these things for our areas as well.
So it's no surprise to anyone living near by or in the woods that animals can do this, that is if they pay attention.
Additive Noise Model (Score:5, Funny)
According to the Additive Noise Model, the birds didn't avoid the storm. They caused it.
Re:All those flapping wings (Score:5, Funny)
It's like the butterfly effect but with birds!
Re: (Score:3)
How do you know some butterfly didn't cause the birds to move?
Skittish? (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
By Neruos (Score:1)
No shyt?
Birds understand atmospheric pressure changes, they have a biological sensory organ that allows them to "feel" barometric pressure. This was discovered like 70 years ago? Why is it that when someone figures out something they think they are the first and it gets noticed boarded on the front page. /. has really started to go down hill.
Oh did you know sand keeps your skin soft, we should post about that!
Must have been bird Twitter. (Score:2, Funny)
Must have been bird Twitter.
I'll never forget the summer of '87 in Edmonton (Score:2)
I was out mowing the lawn at my parents' place one day on a Wednesday afternoon in late July of that year, and the strangest thing happened to me that I had absolutely no explanation for at the time. I cannot describe the sensation any other way than to say that I was suddenly afraid of the sky. The weather seemed entirely fine by all appearances, with only a smattering of clouds in the sky, but all I wanted to do was just abandon the lawn mower right where it was and get inside. Of course, intellectua
Re: (Score:2)
this is new info??? (Score:2, Insightful)
This has been common knowledge for years, I was taught growing up to pay attention to the animals while in the wild... how is this even news????
Climate change deniers (Score:1)
...would have stayed in the nest, screaming that their friends' data was flawed and that the simulations needed to be improved before taking flight.
Those denier birds stayed put while the rest left. When the rest came back, they divvied up the denier birds' seeds.
Rainclouds Keep Forming Above My Head (Score:1)
Every time tornadoes appear?~