I stayed in bed about an hour this morning listening to the birds. They reminded me of a loud meeting. In the background I heard the constant song/chatter of the sparrow. The yellow-eyed Brewers Blackbird offered his one note, a sweet threeeeee. A Crow pitched in now and then with his grumpy caaaww. The Doves cooooed. Once I got out of bed I saw that each has a special perch from which they added to whatever was under discussion. The Starling sat alone in the crab apple tree, the sparrows congregated in another, the Doves on the cold wires that run down the alley. The crow moved about during the meeting and silent vultures circled overhead.
Suddenly the meeting ended. Silence, followed by howling wind. Where do they all go when the morning wind comes up?
Ask.com tells me: “Birds tend to take cover in a bush, tree or cavity when windy. They will also sit on their nests to protect their nestlings or eggs from the wind. Birds that live on grassy plains will huddle under thick bunches of grass while those who live near mountains will take shelter in a cave or under overhanging rocks.”
An article in the New York Times Science section says this,
” ..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 theNational Audubon Society in Washington. “The only way they can accomplish that is to have amazing abilities that are far beyond anything we can do.”
Among a bird’s weather management skills is the power to detect the air pressure changes that signal a coming storm, and with enough advance notice to prepare for adversity. Scientists are not certain how this avian barometer works, yet the evidence of its existence is clear.
As just one example, Dr. Langham cited the behavior of the birds in his backyard in Washington on the days before Hurricane Sandy arrived. “They were going crazy, eating food in a driving rain and wind when normally they would never have been out in that kind of weather,” he said. “They knew a bigger storm was coming, and they were trying to get food while they could.”
“Songbirds and their so-called passerine kin may be notorious lightweights — if a sparrow were a letter, it could travel on a single stamp — but that doesn’t mean they’re as helpless as loose feathers in the wind. Passerine means perching, and the members of this broad taxonomic fraternity all take their perching seriously”
“When a storm hits, a passerine bird can alight on the nearest available branch or wire with talons that will reflexively close upon contact and remain closed by default, without added expenditure of energy, until the bird chooses to open them again. If you’ve ever watched a perched bird in a high wind and worried, “Poor squinting thing — could it be blown away and smashed to bits down the road?,” the answer is not unless the perch is blown away with it.”
“Scientists have found that many migratory birds, especially the passerines, seek to hug the coast and its potential perches as long as possible, leaving the jump over open water to the last possible moment. But for birds over the open ocean, hurricanes pose a real challenge, and they can be blown off course by hundreds of miles. In fact, ornithologists and serious bird-watchers admit they look forward to big storms that might blow their way exotic species they’d otherwise never see in their lifetime.”
