Birds In Minnesota Are Smashing Into Houses And Windshields Probably Because They're Drunk

• 01

  "It appears some birds are getting a little more 'tipsy' than normal," Gilbert Police Chief Ty Techar wrote this week in a Facebook post.

  
  via Gilbert Minnesota Police Department

  In the post, the police is asking residents to remain calm.

  
  

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• 02

  No, the town's birds aren't downing worm-flavored margaritas. Techar believes their confused state is the result of eating berries that have fermented earlier than usual due to an early frost.

  
  via Shared.com

  "Many birds have not migrated south, so it appears to be more prevalent than in past years," he told ABC News. "Younger birds' livers cannot handle the toxins as efficiently as more mature birds."

• 03

  The People felt so relieved to hear that was the reason:

  
  via Shared

  "Oh my goodness....I was going to say something...but I thought I was crazy!!! This has been happening to me!" one resident wrote on the Facebook post. "That explains all the birds bouncing off my window lately!" chimed in another.

• 04

  Is this true? Are the birds really drunk?

  
  via ABC News

  Yes, said Anna Pidgeon, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin's Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, who notes it's not a rare phenomenon. "It's more typical in late winter, early spring when berries that have been on branches ferment due to the yeast that's on them," she told ABC News . Robins and cedar waxwings rely primarily on fruit and are more susceptible to "getting drunk," said Pidgeon. (Yes, that's really her name.) Getting intoxicated can be quite dangerous for them, she said. "(They) lose their coordination, they lose their natural ability to escape predators -- including poor judgment when it comes to flying." The birds can also get alcohol poisoning.

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• 05

  On the other side, experts say :No, it has more to do with migration

  
  via ABC News

  But Laura Erickson, author of the "National Geographic Pocket Guide to Birds of North America," said most of what people are seeing in northern Minnesota are not drunk birds at all. She said she's gotten hundreds of calls and emails from people who say they've seen birds running into cars and homes. But none of those birds, Erickson said, has been the fruit-eating kind. Instead, she said, they're yellow-rumped warblers and sparrows migrating through Minnesota. So far this fall the state is seeing an especially heavy flow of birds passing through, flying closer to the ground in search of food, she said.

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