OPERA Radar shows flock awakened by Dutch Midnight Fireworks

Radar images from The Netherlands showing birds scattering when
fireworks are set off at midnight during 2007/8 New Year’s Eve.
KEY: green = 10¹; yellow = 10³; red = 10⁶ birds
(Credit: the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam / doi:10.1093/beheco/arr102)

Birds Flee En Masse From New Year's Eve Fireworks - Forbes
As you can see, almost no birds were in flight immediately before before midnight on New Year’s Eve. But only a few minutes after midnight, when fireworks were being lit in inhabited areas all over the country, massive movements — one could say “explosive” movements — of wild birds were detected. The areas with the greatest radar reflectivity (indicating the greatest density of flying birds) were seen over lakes, wetlands, and river floodplains (blue lines) — many of which are designated Natura 2000 sites, which are protected as breeding and resting sites for rare and threatened species.

Source:
Judy Shamoun-Baranes, Adriaan M. Dokter, Hans van Gasteren, E. Emiel van Loon, Hidde Leijnse, and Willem Bouten (2011). Birds flee en mass from New Year’s Eve fireworks, Behavioral Ecology, 22:1173–1177 doi:10.1093/beheco/arr102

 This study quantifies the temporal and spatial scale of immediate response of birds to fireworks; more work is clearly needed to assess the longer term consequences at the individual and population levels (e.g., Gill and Sutherland 2000; Wingfield 2003; Béchet et al. 2004; Wikelski and Cooke 2006), especially in and around areas designated for nature conservation, such as Natura 2000 sites (Anonymous 2000). The weather radar used in this study is part of an operational weather radar network (OPERA, Operational Programme for the Exchange of weather RAdar information) (Dokter et al. 2011) and as such can be a powerful tool for monitoring large movements (e.g., due to disturbance or migratory flights) across political boundaries and on a continental scale (Gauthreaux and Belser 2003; Shamoun-Baranes et al. 2008; Dokter et al. 2011). Although radar enables us to quantify the movements of birds in flight and at night, we can expect that other wildlife, not measured by the radar are also affected. Biotelemetry and field endocrinology can help further improve our understanding of individual behavioral and physiological response and the energetic cost of such disturbances in a broad range of animals (e.g., Cooke et al. 2004; Ropert-Coudert and Wilson 2005; Walker et al. 2005; Bisson et al. 2009), and an integration of techniques to study responses at different scales, at the individual and population level, could be even more promising (Robinson et al. 2010).

Related/Background:

• KNMI - Monitoring bird migration by weather radar