Reliable sources told me that kinglet and sapsucker are back in the yard, so it must be fall!
Something else that fall brings is hurricanes, though happily this year has been rather quiet in the Carolinas.
People often purposely remove themselves from the path of hurricanes, and as people, we often presume that animals act like we do. So most might assume that birds either a) try to avoid hurricanes, or b) not having particularly reliable internet connection with which to watch Fox's Weather Command, don't know one is coming and get splattered.
We often hear or talk about "storm blown" birds that get whipped up in the whims of the weather and deposited unwillingly on inland lakes and reservoirs.
But what if birds are "smarter" than that? What if they not only know the storm exists, but they know from hundreds or even thousands of miles away just where that storm is? And what if they adjust their behavior accordingly? Well, apparently at least one species of petrel consists of a bunch up hopped-up adrenaline junkies that purposefully fly right into hurricanes.
I mean, yeah, the Hurricane Hunters fly right into storms, but why would a bird? Many folks are aware that hurricanes stir up the water, specifically, they create upwelling that causes subsurface water to rise. The result of this that makes "weather sense" to us is that once a strong hurricane passes, it's less likely to have one form along the same path since the water is cooled. They call that the "cold water wake". Used in a sentence, "Imelda crossed Humberto's cold water wake and lost strength".
Since those same upwellings bring food to the surface, hurricanes could act like a slowly moving buffet.
