"Soon it's gonna rain" is a fantastic ballad from the musical comedy "The Fantasticks." The music was composed by Harvey Schmidt and the lyrics written were written by Tom Jones. The lyrics resonate with me, because when it’s gonna rain, I can feel it. I can tell. And not just because I have frizzy hair and arthritis.
I seem to be able to sense barometric pressure — and is not all that great — for I tend to be moody and less productive when the air pressure is dropping. But I am pretty good at predicting rain.
So are birds. And again, it seems to relate to air pressure. When the barometric pressure is low, a bird has to work harder to fly. In high pressure, birds can fly high with less effort.
Because a drop in pressure often is associated with impending storms birds tend to fly lower and they are more likely to perch for a little rest when it is going to rain.
But it has to be more than that. Birds seem to have sensitive ears that detect changes in air pressure. From research conducted indoors, placing birds in pressurized chambers has revealed that when air pressure decreases, birds tend to eat more. Presumably, this has survival value because in the wild, birds instinctively try to fill up so they can sit out a storm.
Another possibility is that birds might detect low-frequency sound waves generated by a storm so they eat and then, take cover.
So when the birds are flying low or if you notice ravenous little birds flocking to your bird feeders, and you “hear how the wind begin to whisper” and “see how the leaves go streaming by” you might want to check the radar on your weather app. Because more likely than not, “soon it’s gonna rain.”
