off-season migration to avoid tornadic storms (1 Viewer)

Interesting new publication of results from a light-level geolocator study in Tennessee. The authors speculate that the birds perceived the approach of the storms via infrasound.

Write-up:
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-distant-tornadoes-birds-flew-coop.html

Article (abstract; main text behind paywall):
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01428-6

"Streby et al. show that migrant songbirds evacuated their breeding territories and circumvented a severe tornado outbreak. Thus, obligate migrant birds can make facultative migrations outside the regular migration period. Birds evacuated long before the storm, suggesting infrasound produced by the storm cued the behavior."

This was written up in BBC News, Science and Environment yesterday. "Birds 'heard tornadoes coming' and fled the day before." Interesting article with a good photograph of a Golden Winged Warbler; the birds that were tracked in the study. Good pic also of the weather pattern that caused the tornadoes.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30531060

Bob

Very interesting! Thanks for posting. If they get more data to confirm this it will be quite a find. For birds to leave their newly claimed nesting territories and tear across the land to get out of the way of an on-coming storm is really unexpected.