There’s some rather dramatic nighttime footage on social media of hundreds of small songbirds swirling around a Maine lobster boat.
The boat captain, a popular TikTok content producer, suggested it’s a harbinger of how intense Hurricane Lee is going to be when it hits here on Saturday.
They are not.
The video was posted by Jacob Knowles, a lobsterman out of Gouldsboro who has more than 2 million followers on Tiktok where he showcases his day-to-day life working on the water.
Attempts to reach Knowles were not successful.
In his recent bird video, which had been viewed more than 160,000 times by Friday afternoon, he is seen catching birds, pointing at birds landing on his boat and saying neither he nor his father has ever seen anything like it during their combined times at sea.
Their only explanation? The approaching hurricane.
Turns out, if you want accurate information about the approaching storm, you’re better off checking the National Weather Service and not the songbirds. State wildlife and bird experts are saying what Knowles witnessed are, in fact, normal — if extreme — examples of seasonal migratory bird behavior.
“Here we are in mid-September, and it’s peak time for songbird migration,” said Doug Hitchcox, naturalist with Maine Audubon. “They are long-distance migrants, and on any given night there can be tens of thousands of them over the Gulf of Maine.”
Most people are accustomed to seeing tiny birds like the warblers in Knowles’ video over land, so it’s understandable people could be concerned and assume some sort of internal avian barometer signaled them to fly offshore.
“That would maybe be true if the birds were nesting,” Hitchcox said. “But this time of year, it is not uncommon for a large quantity of them to be out over the ocean.”
Hitchox had viewed Knowles’ video, and said dozens of people had forwarded it to him.
While it’s likely some sort of unfavorable weather condition forced the migrating songbirds to drop down in elevation close to the water, it’s very unlikely it was due to Hurricane Lee. It was simply too soon for those conditions to be hurricane-related, Hitchcox said.
It’s also possible the bright running lights on the lobster boats attracted the birds, he said. In the video crewmembers were attempting to capture the small birds using a net on a pole. Hitchcox cautioned against that method as it could harm the birds that weigh less than an ounce.
He is not discounting the birds could know something is up with the weather. He’s not convinced they are reliable weather forecasters.
“Birds and other animals are super smart,” Hitchcox said. “They essentially have built in barometers and can sense changes in atmospheric conditions and can probably tell when there is a big [storm] on the way.”
When they do sense a change, migratory birds will hunker down until it passes. Homeowners will likely see more activity around bird feeders a day or so before a big storm as birds get as big of a meal as they can before they have to seek shelter.
Around Maine people have taken to social media reporting what they considered unusual late season hummingbird activity around feeders.
“The hummingbirds are probably not acting strange due to the hurricane,” Hitchcox said. “There is always a bit of observer bias — if no one knew a hurricane was coming, would they still say the hummingbirds were acting strange?”
On land it’s not unusual to see increased activity among wildlife in the state as they also can sense coming weather changes.
“When there is an approaching barometric low like a hurricane or Nor’Easter, animals do get more active,” Mark Latti, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said. “They know once the storm hits they won’t be able to move around as much.”
