Thick ‘cloud of birds’ settles over Alabama couple, turning their boat ride ‘crazy’

A bird-watching Alabama couple got more than they bargained for last week, when their quiet boat ride was swept up in a whirlwind of migrating birds on Mobile Bay.

Jamie Kay Tillman posted photos of the incident, showing a “cloud of birds” fell out of the sky in a matter of seconds and got within feet of the boat, whipping around them to skim the water’s surface.

“I had been taking photos of the flock from a great distance ... when suddenly the large group was over us,” she told McClatchy news group.

A clearly overwhelmed Tillman is heard gasping “this is crazy” in a video of the moment. Her photos have been shared hundreds of times on Facebook, where people labeled them frightening and compared the scene to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror classic “The Birds.”

“Spooky,” wrote Darla Letsinger.

“Looks like my worst fear,” Latisha Redmond commented.

Tillman, who lives in Mobile, says it wasn’t fear she experienced as the sky turned peppery and the chirping grew to a “squeaking” roar. It was “magical,” she says. Neither she nor her husband, David, were hit by any birds.

“It was such a beautiful sight. It got a little loud, but I was super excited,” she told McClatchy. “I almost forgot in the moment I was there to take photos. I love taking wildlife photographs. I just had no idea what I was in store for.”

Her photos were shared Tuesday by the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, which said Tillman captured the “spectacle of migrating tree swallows.”

“These insect-eating birds migrate in loose flocks and assemble to roost in huge congregations,” wildlife officials explained on Facebook.

Tree swallows are known for their “large migratory and wintering flocks” and their capacity to “dive-bomb” when necessary, reports AllAboutBirds.org. There’s also a good explanation for why they got so close to the couple’s boat that day.

“They bathe by flying low over the water and skimming their bodies against the surface, then rising quickly while shaking off droplets,” AllAboutBirds says.

This story was originally published November 6, 2019 at 11:25 AM with the headline "Thick ‘cloud of birds’ settles over Alabama couple, turning their boat ride ‘crazy’."