When Hurricane Lee hit Canada in mid-September, the damage was less severe. Several thousand people lost power and many Canadians were disrupted by wind and waves.
Typhoon over the ocean
Hurricane Lee – previously a tropical cyclone over the ocean – then headed our way. In the Netherlands, Lee’s remains caused a lot of wind and rain and England also experienced typical autumn weather due to the storm’s remains.
Now it seems a special visitor has also arrived in the UK and Ireland thanks to Storm Lee. It started last week with a Canadian warbler, a North American songbird, which was first seen in the UK:
Later, the Blacburnian warbler was also seen in Ireland and since then at least sixteen species of birds that are not native to Britain or Ireland have been seen.
55 birds
For example, swallows usually only live in North America. In all, 55 birds have been identified, it wrote New York Times.
The fact that this special bird arrived in the UK for the first time is because Hurricane Lee hit quite early this year. In September, many birds have just begun their avian migration, the annual migration to warm South America, when a tropical cyclone over the Atlantic Ocean hinders their work.
“These early storms brought in birds that would never normally come here,” Alexander Lees, a biodiversity researcher at the University of Manchester, told the American newspaper.
Lost over the sea
He stressed that while some birds had been able to resume their journey again after the storm, ‘tens of thousands more’ had been lost over the sea and only a small number could now be seen in the UK, according to Lees.
Researchers estimate the birds will only stay a few days longer. After eating enough, they continued their journey, for example to Central Africa. But he estimates the birds’ chances of survival are very low. “They have disappeared from their habitat. Can they find a place to hibernate? Is there enough food? They face other predators and new diseases here.”
Until then, the birds continued to amaze enthusiastic spotters in England:
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