Birds predicted approaching storm

I do a bit of birdwatching and follow a local newsgroup which reports on interesting sightings in the area of Central Scotland.

Last week several reports were made of seabirds being spotted inland. Birds such as Gannets and Guillimots and Skuas which normally would only be seen well out at sea suddenly started showing up in inland areas.

I've never heard of this before in 30 years of living in this area.

The first reports were dated around 19 September and continued right up to 24 September when Scotland was hit by the worst September storm in 30 years

ATS thread on the storm

This storm was slightly unusual in that it was an easterly wind coming in off the North Sea. Normally we get storms from the south west or west direction coming from the Atlantic.

Now since the storm hit and over the past few days there have been many reports of birds being washed up dead, or found damaged from the effects of the storm, so there is no doubt that the birds found it difficult to cope with the high winds.

But it seems to me that the birds knew well in advance by about 5 days that there was something about to happen and many of them decided to head for cover inland.

Here are some screen shots I've made of the forum I follow. I could give you a link to the forum but I think only members can view the posts. It's a yahoo group.










The locations mentioned Killin, Tyndrum and Crainlarich are dead centre of Scotland in terms of being inland and as far from the sea as you could get and mountainous area.

I live in the central USA, in the summer three days before a heavy rain, the box turtles will seek higher ground, they will be seen out on the roads, crossing towards the higher side. So yes animals or in this case reptiles can predict the weather.

A lot of animals have perceptions that seem weird to us humans. Ever seen a cat freeze up and stare into a corner for a minute and you see nothing there? Its fashinating.

reply to post by bigyin


I watch the ants to know when bad weather is approaching. When you notice they are gathering food at an accelerated rate and they start building their mounds quite a bit bigger you can rest assured that the rains- they are a comin'!

if this is a prediction then we better start talking to the canadian Geese they Predict bad weather every year.

this is nothing new anyone who has their head out of the sand and in the real world can see what the animals already know.

Interesting thread. I remember watching the seagulls last week and thinking they were behaving funny. Twice I looked out to see one perched on each chimney in our street and the chimneys I could see on the streets behind ours. All facing west. Next thing, one's flying all over screeching like buggery while they all seemed to listen. Then they all did that silent gliding thing they do when the wind's getting up.


I had no idea gannets don't go inland either. I'm sure I saw a couple of them, but I'm almost on the shore so that wouldn't be strange, would it?


Just today some long-tailed tits visited my garden in a screaming mob. They landed right above me on an old BT cable, looked me over then went away. I had to identify them by googling. I've seen them before but didn't know what they were. I thought someone had lost a big bunch of screeching budgies. What a chattering they do.

I'm in East Fife and can see the bass rock from my window. Well I could if I vandalised the lleylandii someone planted a few years back.

Hi from NorthEast England!

I'm not on the coast, but not far from it. whenever we get seagull's on the roofs and in the gardens you'll hear people say that 'the sea must be rought' or 'there's a storm out at sea'.
seems the worse the storm the further inland they travel

but then i've also heard if cows lie down its going to rain and found thats not really true or accurate lol.

I know my video doesn't have anything to do w/ your storm but I thought u would be interested in seeing it. It's from Fidockave213. This YouTube channels brilliant in the information they gather and put together. This particular vid deals w/ a lot of strange weather, ..well, extreme events for August and Sept.

S & F thanks