Music & Space

On this page you can see three videos. The first film shows the massive bird migration during the spring migration, the second film illustrates how insects enter the atmosphere high through rising warm air. And the third shows the panic reactions of birds during fireworks on New Year's Eve. The videos were made by the weather radar and show the versatility of this radar. The radar acts here as an instrument that can make something visible that is often not visible to the naked eye and thus gives a unique insight into the lives of birds and other air dwellers.

These radar images show the bird migration during the classical spring migration. Birds then migrate northwards from the south, towards their breeding grounds. Many songbirds migrate during the night, when the atmosphere is often more stable and they can rest and forage during the day. With the help of weather radars, scientists and birdwatchers can still follow this nocturnal migration. These images also show a striking migratory flow above the North Sea. Many bird species, such as thrushes, finches and other songbirds, hibernate in the south of the United Kingdom and cross the North Sea towards the European mainland during suitable weather conditions. Usually they prefer dry conditions and a favorable wind direction, so that the flight over sea costs as little energy as possible. These radar images show a unique image of large-scale migration, with thousands, to sometimes millions, of birds on the move simultaneously between their wintering areas and their breeding grounds in Europe.

Large numbers of insects can also cause clear radar reflections, as in this video. On warm, quiet days, insects can enter the air massively. Especially when the atmosphere is stable and the wind remains weak, they can spread over large areas. On the radar these swarms appear as fairly even zones with a weak but clear reflection. The insect signals mainly appear during the day, when the sun warms the earth's surface and thermals arise. That rising air helps insects get higher into the atmosphere, making them visible to the radar. Insects can also fill vast areas on radar, with a smoother and more even signal as a characteristic pattern, which contrasts with the somewhat crumbly or granular structure of the bird migration. For radar meteorologists, such biological signals are interesting, if they are recognized as such, and are not interpreted as precipitation, for example.

This film shows the reaction of waterfowl to the fireworks that illuminate the sky and the sound that resounds during the turn of the year from 2025 to 2026. The fluttering fireworks cause a strong reaction in waterfowl. They fly high, so they become visible to the radar. It is an acute and short-lived reaction, because the radar images show that after about half an hour the rest has returned again. Yet this nocturnal disturbance in the middle of winter causes an extra effort on the part of the birds, which can be detrimental to them. It can also happen that they temporarily leave their usual resting places and unintentionally end up elsewhere. These radar images show how sensitive birds are to their environment. The images make it possible, just as with the migration of the birds and of the insects, to make invisible behavior more visible.

Back...