Feeding frenzy or weird dance? Video shows birds spinning like tops at Kansas refuge
.png "A flock of birds were seen spinning in circles at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas, officials say.")
Is it bird courtship? A secret social gathering? Maybe a strange sort of feeding frenzy?
Recently, a flock of birds was spotted spinning in circles on top of the water at a marsh in Kansas, a video shared June 2 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows.
In the video, taken at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, dozens of birds can be seen whirling around amid the gentle waves, making a few quick rotations before coming to a stop, then doing it again.
There’s seemingly no rhythm or pattern as the birds spin again and again, video shows.
“Wow, I’m dizzy watching them,” one commenter said on the post.
But why are they doing this?
The birds are Wilson’s phalaropes, wildlife officials said, and they spin because “it’s what they do,” and “it’s who they are.”
Beyond that, the birds do this for the same reason animals do a lot of weird things — for food, experts say.
“The spinning creates a tiny whirlpool that brings up food from the bottom of the shallow waters and into the whirly-bird’s beak,” the USFWS said.
More specifically, the spinning “stirs up the small invertebrates from the bottom” of the water, according to Kansas National Wildlife Refuges Complex, which first shared the video in a May 4 social media post.
Unless they’re passing through, Wilson’s phalaropes are usually only found across a relatively small swath of North America, with virtually no presence in the Southern and Northeastern U.S., nor most of the Midwest, according to the National Audubon Society.
Quivira National Wildlife Refuge is a roughly 260-mile drive southwest of Kansas City.
This story was originally published June 2, 2024 at 2:09 PM with the headline "Feeding frenzy or weird dance? Video shows birds spinning like tops at Kansas refuge."