Birdwatching During a Tornado Warning

On the afternoon of August 21, 2009 my brother phoned me frantically. He wanted to tell me that a tornado watch was in effect in my area and that rotating clouds were seen about fifteen miles from my home. I didn't know that since we didn't have the radio or TV on. It had been sunny outside.

I went out and saw to the east, blue sky and puffy white clouds.

The wind was coming in strong from the west and with it, dark rain clouds.

I went to tell my kids that a storm was coming and there was a tornado watch on. I also phoned a friend in the town where the rotating clouds were reported to be. Her family didn't know of the warning either. I told her I ws going to take photos.



Then I grabbed my camera and went to the backyard. I saw rotating clouds right overhead! I snapped some photos. I started getting anxious because I'd never seen clouds rotate like that before. The clouds were low also.

(The last photo, above, is zoomed in as close as I could get to one rotating area.)

I went to the front of the house to catch the view from the south. That is when I spotted the Chimney Swifts. We have a pair of Chimney Swifts that live in one of our chimneys each year. They usually fly high, too high to photograph. They eat insects and spend most of their time flying and hunting. However they were out flying not hiding in the chimney.

At that point there was no rain yet. It was very windy though. The odd thing about the Chimney Swifts was they were keeping right around the house. They would fly in circles, going past the chimney, perhaps ten feet over the roof of our house. This is very low for them. They were tweeting as they usually do. It is then that I recalled that wild creatures and birds usually take cover when a bad storm is coming. I figured maybe we'd not get a tornado if the birds were not bothered enough to hide. Although I could not see or hear any other species of birds.

Then the rain came, at first, not so heavy then it was a downpour with low visibility. At that point the clouds were very low and there were no more rotating clouds. That is when the Chimney Swifts expanded their flying pattern to my whole yard, around the house and over the backyard. They went higher in the sky, but still closer than their norm.

I tried capturing the swifts with my camera but it was difficult. I even switched to my 70-300mm lens but they fly so fast it was hard to get them in focus and get the shot before they were out of range.

I watched most of that storm from my front porch, under the roof, where my camera and I could stay dry.

It was an awesome experience to watch that storm come through. I did think at one point that some people would think that birdwatching in a tornado watch storm is weird but I don't care. To me it seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to spent time during the storm. Had a tornado really arrived on the scene I'd have been in my front door and down in the basement with my kids in a flash, believe me.