The TRUE STORY of Hitchcock’s The Birds | Science Stranger than Fiction || Wild Lives Ep. 2

LIKE, THIS REALLY HAPPENED. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic THE BIRDS is, in part, inspired by a very real phenomenon that occurred in Santa Cruz, California in 1961. One night, inexplicably, thousands of sooty shearwater birds lost their minds, dive-bombing into homes and even biting people. But, for 50 years, no one knew why… That is, until Dr. Sibel Bargu Ates connected dots throughout history through meticulous (and rather imaginative) archive specimen research. This is a Hitchcockian mystery wrapped in a scientific paper-a biological whodunnit.
Also, in this video: we uncover a horrifying first hand account of the true-life bird invasion (which overlaps in a way with another Hitchcock film, PSYCHO). And, learn how birds flock and move together. In fact, a 1986 computer program helped solve the puzzle of how they actually fly so close without every bird in a flock ricocheting off each other like pinballs.
Said another way, this is a story all about bird brains.
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ABOUT WILD LIVES
Popular Science’s WILD LIVES is a monthly series that dives like an Emperor penguin into some of the wildest stories and weirdest facts about, of course, wild animals. In their own words. Well, approximately their own words-they are wild animals after all.
CREDITS
Video by: Tom McNamara
Animation: Beth Wexler
Narrator: Elizabeth Ollier
Executive Producer: Amy Schellenbaum
Editor-in-Chief: Corinne Iozzio
Media
1961 Santa Cruz Sentinel bird invasion photos (courtesy Covello & Covello Photography), Archival gut contents image (2012, Nature Geoscience), “Birds of America” (1917, The University Society), Boids program (1986, courtesy Craig Reynolds), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920, Paramount film), Dr. Sibel Bargu Ates, “Gull Island” and “Inishvickillane, Blasket Islands” footage (1942, 1925, Chicago Academy of Sciences), Internet Archives, Mixed zooplankton sample (2019, Adriana Zingone, Domenico D'Alelio, Maria Grazia Mazzocchi, Marina Montresor, Diana Sarno, LTER-MC team), Oral history by Edna Messini (courtesy Capitola Historical Museum, Frank Perry), Pond5, Prelinger Archives, Pseudo-Nitzschia specimen images (NOAA/NWFSC), Santa Cruz Sentinel, “The Birds” (1963, Universal Pictures), “The Vanishing Lady” (1896, Georges Méliès)
Music
APM, Vik Sharma
Thank You
Dr. Sibel Bargu Ates (Louisiana State University, College of the Coast & Environment, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences), Shmuel Thaler (Staff Photographer, Santa Cruz Sentinel), Dr. Cheryl Baduini (Claremont), Frank Perry (Curator, Capitola Historical Museum), Georgia Chronopoulos (Covello & Covello Photography), Wyatt Young (Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Frank Gravier (Reference Librarian, Special Collections & Archives, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz), Erin Chapman, Josh Engel (Red Hill Birding), Jack Furtado
#AlfredHitchcock #TheBirds #SootyShearwaters #science #biology #ornithology #computerscience #computerprogramming #boids #math #naturalhistory #SantaCruz #1961 #movie #moviehistory #hitchcock #birds #mystery #edu #education #educational #sci #popularscience #FrasiertheSensuousLion #animalbehavior #popsci #science #zoo #zoos #curious #wildlives #wildlife #animal #animals #birdvideo #animalvideo #education #learning #edu #educational #biology #naturalhistory #alfred #allabout #birdfacts #craigreynolds #Ardennagrisea #birdflock #flock #starling #Murmuration #geese #whydobirdsflock #Canadagoose #Brantacanadensis #Sturnusvulgaris #frasier #santacruz #california #montereybay #history #californiahistory #moviehistory #bodegabay #birdsattack #kidscience

[@Lucky7tattooNettahoe]

Fascinating. I had always wondered "what happened" as a kid in the area this really happened. Now I know! Thanks for the education.

[@d4mdcykey]

For those in the comment section (and likely for those to come later) please pay better attention to the actual video dialogue as well as the description under the video, instead of getting triggered and attributing something that is neither said, nor implied. It's frankly embarrassing what little cognition so many people have these days.

[@pcno2832]

I've heard stories of presumably-sane birds dive-bombing animals (cats, humans, etc.) that they perceive to be potential predators, so it makes sense that confused or poisoned flocks of birds might do the same to random creatures, even if there is no reason for them to perceive them as predators.

[@fourthinternationalist_1917]

after watching the film I spent several years being afraid of crows

[@carnevil5740]

First time this year i had a robins nest in my window in flew enza

[@johnbesharian9965]

Wasn't Hitchcock's The Birds filmed in Bolinas? My wife, Lisa Kindred and I lived in Stinson Beach between mid-December of 1971 to late September of 1973. Beautiful place. (Good fishing too.)

[@spiritmiracle8032]

Bird = 33

[@hja2]

The Birds is based on a short story written by Daphne du Maurier and published in 1952... with some possible inspiration from Robert E. Howard's The Pigeons from Hell.

[@garryrobinson5494]

this is a crock of crap. Movie was based on Daphne du Maurier story.