As Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, birds were stuck inside its eye, where the wind is calmer. The tropical storm could disrupt fall bird migration.
Birds are incredible navigators, capable of traveling thousands of miles each year to the same location. But sometimes even they end up in the wrong place at the wrong time — like inside a hurricane.
Last night, as Hurricane Helene was making landfall in Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, radar spotted a mass in the eye of the storm that experts say is likely birds and perhaps also insects.
Helene was a massive storm when it traveled across the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week. Seabirds likely fled the storm’s extreme winds — which reached 140 miles per hour — and ended up in the eye, where it’s calm. Once inside, they essentially got trapped, unable to pierce through the fierce gusts of the eye wall. When the storm dies down, the mass of birds will probably dissipate, Kyle Horton, a researcher at Colorado State University who studies bird migration, told Vox.
Storms like Helene can blow seabirds like petrels, jaegers, and frigatebirds far inland.
