What Happens to Birds During Hurricanes?

Birds can't watch the local weather forecast for early hurricane warnings, so what do they do when one hits?

Hosted by: Olivia Gordon
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[loCAtek]

Back in the nineties, I was in the US Navy and my ship was stationed in Japan. When we got word a hurriane (monsoon) was coming, we went out to sea to avoid it. The next day when the ship was going to return to port, I went topside and saw that we were covered with birds! All kinds of blown off-course birds; not just sea birds. They all were pretty tired, and got a free ride back to shore.

[Master_Therion]

Poor hurricanes :(
It sounds painful having birds in your eye.

[julianmeredith]

I feel there is a Disney Pixar movie to be had out of this fact: something about a baby boy bird separated from his widower dad during a hurricane, has to travel miles away from his home whilst riding the hurricane out in it's 'eye', has to make his way back home, making new friends along the way, coming of age, yadayadayada... I don't know, maybe...

[TheAgamemnon]

So now Hurricanes not only blow over your shack, they flip you the bird while doing it.

[emmah]

They storm away.
I’ll let my self out, the doors is here.

[SciWise]

Birds have remarkable instincts. Knowing when to fly from NY to Florida in Fall isn't easy, and neither is the over-1, 000-mile-long flight.

[swinde]

I live in southeast Florida. Hurricanes, Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma's eyes passed right over my area. Frances' eye lasted 12 hours, Jeanne about six and Wilma only about two hours. I did not see any abundance of birds. What I did see was in the days leading up to landfall, or actually the leading edge of the storms, the birds were already gone. Pretty sure they did not see the forecasts on TV, but they have some way of detecting that the storm is coming.

[tawon]

There's a video on YouTube where a hawk hangs out in a car with a guy during hurricane Harvey.

[chistinelane]

Could you do a video focusing on citizen science and what average people can do to help out real science?

[MarkKeller]

Just before the small earthquake Virginia had back in 2011, a large flock of seagulls all walked into the warehouse I worked at on the pier. This had never happened before or after since the earthquake.

[joescoggins]

There are three nests in the Shady Lady tree in my front yard. The eye of Irma passed right over my house. All three nests are still in the tree and are occupied. I suspect the birds hunkered down in the nest and rode it out, like I did in my now damaged house. Both the tree and the nests did really well.

[Bacteriophagebs]

My uncle used to be a hurricane hunter back in the '70s and '80s. They'd fly a special model of C-130 through hurricanes, through the eye wall, across the eye, and back into the hurricane again, sometimes more than once. He once told me the most scared he'd ever been while doing this was when he hit a big bird, maybe an albatross, while flying through the eye and it cracked his windshield. The windscreens on those planes are armored, so it didn't go through or anything, but he said he about pissed himself. He seemed to regard it as a really rare event, though, not a regular thing, to see birds in the eye.

[thesmolswefur]

there was a storm back in 2012 in sweden and when it was ower me and my mom was walking on the beach to see if we could find injured birds. afrer like 30 minutes of walking i see a seagull just sitting there in the middle of the beach. so i kindoff sneaked to it because i didnt wanna scare it. and it didnt even flee because it was so exausted. i picked it up carefully and checked for if he was sick or had broken his leg or something. he didnt even try to bite me he was so tired so he just stared at me. and when i had checked everything he was in perfect contition. all the problems was that he was just exausted for flying in the storm. so we went to a safe place away from the water and put him there on some soft leaves.

[mattparker]

Okay, so some get lucky (or unlucky) and get stuck in the eye and/or get blown to distant lands. Fine. But the rest? The bulk of those in the hurricanes path? What about them?
I feel this is one of those rare times that SciShow failed to answer the question they presented.

[ninehundreddollarluxuryyac]

I have been in several hurricanes and am always surprised to see birds flying around in the storm. Just flying around may be safer than trying to hang onto something and being pummeled by debris. This may be related to the big flocks of birds in the eye. Winds circle and converge on the eye, possibly carrying birds into the eye where they accumulate because they avoid the high winds of the eye wall after being swept into the eye.

[layered.jasper]

Spongbob: Hey patrick, do you know what happens to birds during hurricanes?

Patrick: Yeah! They hide in Pirate Patchy's house.

Spongebob: No Patrick!

Patrick: What is it?

Spongebob: They ride them!

*DONT BOTHER KNOWING THE PUNCHLINE!*





They ride the storm and doing NaeNaes

[jhsumatt]

Saying it again. Olivia has gotten much better at presenting information than before. Good job.

[AngelEmmanuel]

I heard Olivia and my dopamine levels raised so much that it went off the charts.

[lpnlizard]

2:35 You mentioned that we could report such things, who exactly do we contact ? What organisations gather these reports either in America or other parts of the world?

[JP-zlge]

Thank you ma'am! From Florida, and have always been curious about this.