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Birds Fled Area Before Tornadoes Appeared
SternisheFan sends a report from scientists who were tracking a group of birds — golden-winged warblers — in the Appalachian mountains. Just a few days after the birds completed their seasonal migration, they did something odd — they picked up and moved again. Shortly thereafter, a series of storms swept through that area of the U.S., which led to a destructive tornado outbreak (abstract).
After the storm had blown over, the team recaptured five of the warblers and removed the geolocators. These are tiny devices weighing about half a gram, which measure light levels. Based on the timing and length of the days they record, these gadgets allow scientists to calculate and track the approximate location of migratory birds. In this case, all five indicated that the birds had taken unprecedented evasive action, beginning one to two days ahead of the storm's arrival. "The warblers in our study flew at least 1,500km (932 miles) in total," Dr. Streby said. They escaped just south of the tornadoes' path — and then went straight home again. By 2 May, all five were back in their nesting area."
...what ruffled THEIR feathers?
According to TFA, they sensed low level harmonics in the atmosphere long before the storms arrived...
" The most likely tip-off was the deep rumble that tornadoes produce, well below what humans can hear. Noise in this "infrasound" range travels thousands of kilometres, and may serve as something of an early warning system for animals that can pick it up. "It's very unlikely that this species is the only group doing this," Dr Streby said. Even from casual birdwatching in the area as the storm drew nearer, he said, "It seemed like there were far fewer birds - so I suspect it's not a species-specific trait." "
This sort of thing makes me chuckle, I grew up around a forest (and a jungle too) and we could always tell when people (or predators) were coming into our area.
The birds went silent or made their warning calls, the thing is you kind of learned those sounds (or lack of) subconsciously.
As we got older we made the connection, but as kids when the birds went silent so did we, listening for what it was they heard or saw.
There were a variety of other indicators for things like seasonal changes (ant nest activity etc) and we learned these things for our areas as well.
So it's no surprise to anyone living near by or in the woods that animals can do this, that is if they pay attention.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Guess what, humans are essentially the only ones who can't tell when bad weather is coming.
Humans can tell when bad weather is coming. We can sense low pressure and it makes us uneasy. One difference between humans and birds is that birds can fly away but can't hunker down in a shelter and ride it out. Other than birds that build in cliffsides, bird's nests are generally pretty exposed. Humans can't fly, but can hunker down in a shelter and ride it out.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I don't think flying ~500 miles away equates to a deer running scared from a sound in the woods. If this is the same story I saw yesterday, the birds in question had just settled in after a migration flight of 3000 miles or so total. After one or two days back they up and flew ~500 miles away, then came right back to the same spot. This is way more specific than most tales you hear of animals getting away from natural disasters. It's worth looking into for exactly the reason you said, "if someone actually predicted a natural disaster by using animal behaviour, that might be interesting." Thus why it's a news story at all.