Forecasting Is For The Birds

Animals sometimes can outforecast your favorite weatherperson.

Even with computer technology and satellites, George Harrison wrote in an article in Sports Afield, the National Weather Service’s 90-day weather forecasts are accurate only 55 percent to 60 percent of the time.

Dependable long-range forecasting is so elusive, people have for ages turned to nature to help them decide when to plant corn and when to harvest it. When to set sail and went to stay in port. When to store food and fuel, and when to head north or south.

Although no one has proven that the animal indicators of weather are factual, they may be at least as accurate as those from human forecasters. Some wild animals seem to have a sensitivity to impending weather changes, particularly the approach of weather that might pose a threat to them.

For example, when weather forecasters predict an approaching winter storm, a good piece of corroborating evidence is if the birds are stocking up on seed and suet from the feeders in your yard.

“It seems logical that songbirds would have a sensitivity to the approach of severe weather,” said wildlife biologist Richard DeGraaf. “They have to eat every day or die, and if a storm is going to restrict their intake of food, they may need to anticipate it in order to survive.”

Wildlife biologist Margaret Brittingham agreed, saying: “Though I studied black-capped chickadees’ eating behavior in winter, I was not looking at their ability to anticipate winter storms. But I believe that they can and do detect changes in barometric pressure.”

It is known that migrating waterfowl sense changes in barometric pressure and will adjust their altitudes in order to fly more easily through air of lower density.

It also is known that pigeons can detect lower frequencies better than people can - perhaps they can hear a storm approaching hours before it arrives.

In the Shetland Islands, off the north coast of Scotland, where the red-throated diver loon lives, there is the belief that this so-called “rain goose” is especially noisy before bad weather, according to ornithologist John Terres.

In North America, Indians believe that the frequent calling of the common loon not only predicts rain, but brings it.

Nearly every country or region has its own “rain bird.” In England, it is the green woodpecker. In parts of North America, it is the spotted sandpiper, and elsewhere it is the black-billed or yellow-billed cuckoo whose frequent calls on sultry days supposedly signal that rain is on the way.

Other natural rain indicators:

If gulls stay on the beach, fishermen should do the same.

When dew is on the grass, the rain will come to pass. When grass is dry at night, look for rain before the light.

When ants travel in a straight line, expect rain. When they scatter, expect fair weather.

Natural observations thought to indicate cold include, Squirrels laying in large stores of nuts, unusually thick feathers on a turkey and, of course, the ground hog casting a shadow on Feb. 2.

Folk lore also suggests that the wider the black bands on a woolly bear caterpillar, the harsher the winter will be.