Alfred Hitchcock loosely adapted a 1952 short story into his 1963 film The Birds, but it was also inspired by a real life event in 1961. That’s when thousands of sooty shearwaters invaded North Monterey Bay, crashing into buildings and dying on the streets. It took quite some time to figure out what caused the birds’ behavior, which is explained in this video from Popular Science. -via Digg
Source: neatorama