US scientists say tracking data showing five golden-winged warblers left their nesting site a day a tornado outbreak suggests the birds “heard it coming”.
Geolocators showed the birds, which had just finished a 5,000km migration, left the Appalachians and flew 700km (400 miles) south to the Gulf of Mexico.
The next day the deadly April 2014 tornadoes swept across the central US.
The discovery, reported in Current Biology, suggests many birds may sense and escape extreme events in this way.
Dr Henry Streby, from the University of California, Berkeley, said he initially set out to see if tracking the warblers was even possible.
“This was just a pilot season for a larger study that we’re about to start,” Dr Streby told the BBC.
“These are very tiny songbirds — they weigh about nine grams.
“The fact that they came back with the geolocators was supposed to be the great success of this season. Then this happened!”
