Last week, Hurricane Helene turned north into western North Carolina, causing catastrophic damage, particularly in the Asheville area and surrounding counties. Entire homes and businesses were flooded, some floating in a horrific wave of debris.
Amid all this, some birders noticed something: People in some of the hardest-hit areas were still recording sightings on the popular eBird app. As it happens, some of those areas (Buncombe and Henderson counties in particular) have been birding hotspots for years. Less than a day after the storm passed, while many were still assessing the damage, birders returned to chronicle their findings.
Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in western Florida on September 26 before becoming a tropical storm as it moved north. When it hit the Appalachians, rivers overflowed and floods buried valley cities. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. The current death count from the storm is more than 200which is expected to increase in the coming days as emergency teams reach increasingly remote areas.
For bird watchers, the storm was traumatic. None of them had electricity, cell service or water in their homes. But they could walk outside, try to distract themselves from the tragedy unfolding around them, and watch both local and exotic birds in the area. When they finally obtained limited cell service, either by traveling or by satellite connection or through temporary cell towers, they published their findings on eBird, which has more than 900,000 users around the world, it was almost instinctive.
Swiney also has He lived in Appalachia all his life and in the Asheville area for about two years. An ordained minister, Swiney works as a spiritual advisor, which is similar to a life coach but focuses exclusively on the spiritual. He started birdwatching about five years ago thanks to his son, who had a budding interest.
“I got serious about downloading the eBird app and the Merlin app that help you identify birds by sight and sound,” he says. “Since then, it’s been something that has become part of the regular rhythm of my life.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and National Guard were not in the area in full force until a few days after the storm, he says. Before that, they had to depend on their neighbors. One of them, who had a generator, opened his house to people who needed to charge their phones or boil water.
Swiney began volunteering at her local First Baptist Church to distribute food and supplies donated by a group in South Carolina. It has been overwhelming, he says, coming to terms with the “heaviness” of the storm. Bird watching, he says, has been a source of relief. Even before the storm, she had checked her backyard for birds every day.
“It’s been a relief for me to have moments where I’m just looking out the window at the bird feeder hanging on my porch and identifying the birds that are coming,” Swiney says. “It’s just brought some peace and comfort in the midst of this storm.”
Normally, this time of year, Swiney would have traveled to bird-watching spots in search of migrating falcons, which arrive by the thousands as they fly south. The road to the area is currently closed, so he has only birded in places he can travel to on foot.