Videos have been circulating on social media showing birds gathering on streets and falling from the sky. People are speculating that this could be a sign of an impending environmental disaster.
Should we be worried? Why are people concerned about bird behaviour?
Over the past two weeks, TikTok and Twitter have featured videos shared multiple times showing hundreds of birds landing on a street. The videos have been viewed more than a million times.
One post, which has gained more than 400,000 views, claims: “the main theory is that the birds feel that an environmental crisis is approaching”.
Thousands of users shared the video with similar comments, fearing that a natural disaster is coming. The video also claimed to have been filmed in Japan, although, as some viewers pointed out, the architecture did not match and a Mexican license plate was visible on one of the cars.
Can birds predict upcoming natural disasters?
Science suggests that animals may be able to sense natural disasters, such as earthquakes, sooner than humans, but only by seconds or minutes. When an earthquake occurs, seismic waves spread from the epicentre. Primary waves—the first waves felt—are smaller, and humans mostly do not notice them. They are followed by stronger secondary waves that can shake the ground and destroy buildings.
Animals, which have sharper senses of hearing and smell than humans, can sense these waves a few seconds or minutes before humans. Scientists are studying whether animal behaviour can be a form of early warning system. You can read more details about this here. However, when it comes to groups of birds gathering together, there is no reason to worry.
“The fact that a group of blackbirds forms a large flock in an urban environment is completely normal behaviour for blackbirds,” says Kaelie Swift, an avian ecologist and researcher at the University of Washington, in a video she posted online in response to the circulating clips. “So the idea that this is somehow ominous, somehow linked to something happening elsewhere in the world, is completely false.” She continues that the fearful reaction to the videos shows how many of us are disconnected from nature.
Is there any significance to dead birds falling from the sky?
Another video that has recently circulated widely on social media was filmed in the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua and shows hundreds of birds falling from the sky and dying.
Security camera footage shows a flock of birds flying over, suddenly diving onto the street from a great height. Although many birds manage to fly away, subsequent frames show many bird carcasses scattered on the asphalt.
This video is actually not new—the incident happened in February 2022. At the time, a local veterinarian initially blamed high levels of pollution. And there was an unfounded conspiracy theory that the installation of 5G technology might be to blame.
However, experts believe that it was most likely the movement of a bird of prey that caused the flock of blackbirds to die.
How can we protect ourselves against the spread of false information online?
The non-governmental organisation News Literacy Project, which educates the public on how to be smart consumers of news, points out that “people should be aware that photos and video recordings of dead birds have been used for years to fuel conspiratorial and apocalyptic fears”. The organisation responded to the latest piece of misinformation about birds after a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in Ohio this month. People on social media posted old photographs of dead birds and falsely claimed that they were related to the train disaster.
“Conspiracy theorists and peddlers of misinformation try to link these types of images to current events without credible evidence,” it adds. Even if something has been viewed and shared hundreds of thousands of times, it does not mean that it has been verified. Before sharing any content, you should try to find the original source. And be wary of “memes” or social media posts created by completely unknown individuals. These messages are often inaccurate or misleading. Instead, it is better to consult experts.