Songbirds Fled Tornadoes 500 Miles Away. How Did They Know?

In April 2014, a flock of Golden-winged warblers in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee did something that surprised the scientists tracking them. The birds, freshly returned from a 5,000-mile migration from South America, abandoned their breeding territory in unison and flew up to 500 miles to escape a storm system that had not yet arrived.

Two days later, that same system spawned more than 80 tornadoes across the central and southern United States, killing 35 people and causing more than a billion dollars in damage. The warblers were back at their nests within days.

A Study That Changed Our Understanding

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley had attached tiny geolocators to a small group of warblers as part of a larger migration study. The data they retrieved later was startling. The birds left their breeding grounds 24 hours before the storms hit, traveled in a coordinated arc south and east, and returned only after the system passed.

Published in the journal Current Biology and widely reported by NOAA and the National Weather Service, the study was the first clear evidence that small birds may detect severe weather at great distances and flee in time to survive.