No, that's not a weather pattern. It's a flock of bird moving in a strange way. In Wyoming, residents were perplexed when birds seemed to move in some sort of bird tornado.
"I saw those darn things, and I wasn't sure what they were at first," Ed Schreiner told Cowboy State Daily.
While it may seem strange, nature itself can be strange. The formation is actually normal for European starlings. The birds move in a bird tornado pattern called murmuration. The reason locals may not have seen this formation before is that the bird species is invasive.
"They take over the habitat. They out-compete native species and they're prolific. They're bad-news birds," Red Desert Audubon Society president Andrea Orabona told Cowboy State Daily. The species kills the young of other native birds and also destroys crops. Since they're invasive, officials encourage hunters to kill the birds year-round.
Bird Tornado
But the murmation itself is still a pretty cool thing to witness. According to researchers, the bird tornado is done for safety. It's done to confuse predators and to stick together in greater numbers. It's no small feat either. The birds are moving as fast as 48 miles per hour.
Orabona was even spellbound by the display. However, the researcher noted it would be better to go to Europe to see a murmuration rather than have the birds here in America.
"How can they do that specific, tight flight pattern without crashing into each other?" she said. "It would be better if we could travel to Europe to watch murmuration."
The birds first came to America in the 180os. Specifically, they were brought to New York City. From there, they spread all across America. Now there's an estimated 93 million of the bird across the Americas. So it's an old problem but still an important one. Despite their invasive status, they can be fascinating.
