Giant Flock of Birds Over Hudson Valley Fools Weather Radar

The National Weather Service's radar picked up some strange activity over the Hudson Valley this week that wasn't rain.

As we head into Fall, flocks of birds have been very active throughout the Hudson Valley over the past week. In fact, there are so many birds in the air that they've even been picked up by weather radars.

In the image tweeted below by the National Weather Service out of Albany, two clusters of birds can be seen over the Hudson Valley.

An small arc of birds was picked up just north of Cobleskill while an even larger, expanding circle of birds was detected in northern Dutchess County. The sheer size of these flocks is pretty astounding, but anyone who's lived in the Hudson Valley knows that swarms of birds invading our towns isn't anything new.

Weather radar works by sending out radio waves and measuring how they bounce back to the satellite. Usually it bounces of clouds and water droplets, but large groups of animals can also have the same effect. Birds, butterflies and even bugs have been known to set off weather radars.

So next time you see a big blob on the radar instead of a storm cloud overhead it might actually be a giant flock of birds. Either way, you're probably going to want to hide under an umbrella.