The time when thousands of birds covered Athens, Greece after unbearable weather

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.

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On Monday, Apr. 6, 2020, hundreds of thousands of birds' migratory journey was put on pause. Every year, swallows, swifts, and other species of birds make their way from Africa to Europe. In 2020, when these birds were flying near Greece, they were faced with cold weather, strong winds, and limited food.

Many of the avians could not make it through the challenging weather, leaving thousands of dead or injured birds around the streets of Greece. Many birds were able to survive the winds but were so exhausted that they needed to rest.

On that Monday, people who awoke in Eastern Greece were greeted with thousands of resting swallows and martins. They were on the ground, balconies, rooftops and pretty much any surface available. Swifts have a more challenging time resting because their structure is built for mostly flying, were not able to rest on wires or the ground, so they grabbed a wall or air duct where they could. Athens' parks were covered in flycatchers.

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Swallows were highly impacted. They make the trek from as far as South Africa and migrate more than 10,000 km, travelling up to 350 km per day.

For three days many birds succumbed to the unbearable conditions and were found dead across Athens. But many were able to continue their journey after perching in Greece for some rest.

Swifts and swallows look a lot alike. Swifts are a part of the Apodidae family, which is derived from the Greek word "ápous," meaning "footless." Hopefully, these birds felt at home when they were forced to take a rest in their family name's language of origin.

To learn more about the time when thousands of birds' journeys were interrupted, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."

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Thumbnail: Courtesy of Manojiritty/Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 4.0