Survivors of Typhoon Granizo | BirdNote

Birds

By Fluff Love Pets Last updated Jul 9, 2022

[ad_1]

BirdNote^®

Survived the Hail Storm

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[hail ambi]
[Nature SFX016 Thunderstorm]

One day, when the ice started to fall near Toronto, Marlon Inniss saw some Canada Geese doing something weird. Instead of attempting to protect their heads, the geese pointed their bills toward the sky, straight down the path of the hail.

[Canada Geese calls, ML 191029491]

Although seemingly counterintuitive, geese point the smallest area on the surface of their sensitive bills, the narrow end, at the descending hail – minimizing the impact.

Inniss captured the behavior on video, which helped reaffirm an observation made by naturalist Aldo Leopold a hundred years before. He saw the Northern Pintails, a type of duck, using the same position in an ice storm.

[Northern Pintail calls, ML 278121311, 0:10-0:15]

Birds can take other postures to protect against hail. Swans and gulls caught in ice storms sometimes place their heads under their folded wings or on their body feathers.

But birds, even larger species, don’t always avoid damage in an ice storm. Large hailstones, two inches in diameter or more, can kill birds. Some storms have had casualties of hundreds of birds at a time. Birds living in open environments – cormorants, ducks, herons – are easily affected by sudden, heavy hail.

[heavy hail]

Fortunately, these are unusual events. And for lighter hail, they have a strategy.

[Canada Geese calls, ML 191029491]

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

###

Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Canada Goose ML 191029491 recorded by J. McGowan, and Northern Pintail ML 278121311 recorded by J. Holmes. Thunderstorm recorded by Gordon Hempton.
The BirdNote theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2021 BirdNote April 2022 Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# hail-01-2022-04-20 hail-01

Sources:
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.1960
https://www.livescience.com/63245-geese-birds-hailstorm-survive-stare-u…
https://www.reshareworthy.com/canada-geese-weather-hailstorm/
https://sora.unm.edu/
https://britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V79/V79_N07…

BirdNote®
Survived the Hail Storm
Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[hail ambi]
[Nature SFX016 Thunderstorm]

[Canada Geese calls, ML 191029491]

Although seemingly counterintuitive, geese point the smallest area on the surface of their sensitive bills, the narrow end, at the descending hail – minimizing the impact.

[Northern Pintail calls, ML 278121311, 0:10-0:15]

Birds can take other postures to protect against hail. Swans and gulls caught in ice storms sometimes place their heads under their folded wings or on their body feathers.

But birds, even larger species, don’t always avoid damage in an ice storm. Large hailstones, two inches in diameter or more, can kill birds. Some storms have had the deaths of hundreds of birds at a time. Birds living in open environments – cormorants, ducks, herons – are easily affected by sudden, strong storms.

[heavy hail]

Fortunately, these are unusual events. And for lighter hail, they have a strategy.

[Canada Geese calls, ML 191029491]

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

###

ID# hail-01-2022-04-20 hail-01

[ad_2]