This is bird note.

One day as it began to hail near Toronto,

Marlin Innes saw several Canada geese doing something odd.

Rather than trying to shield their heads,

the geese pointed their bills skyward

directly into the path of the hail.

While it seemed counterintuitive, the geese were pointing the smallest surface area of their sensitive bills, the narrow tip, into the descending hail,

minimizing the impact.

Inis captured the behavior on video, which helped reaffirm an observation made by naturalist

Aldo Leopold 100 years before. He saw Northern Pintales, a species of duck adopting the same stance in a hailstorm.

Birds may take on other postures to protect against hail.

Swans and gulls caught in hail storms sometimes tuck their heads beneath their folded wings

or into their body feathers. But birds, even larger species, can't always

avoid injury in a hailstorm. Large hail, two inches in diameter or more can kill birds.

Some storms have had casualties of hundreds of birds at a time.

Birds living in open environments, cormorants, ducks, herons,

are vulnerable to sudden pounding hailstorms.

Fortunately, these are uncommon events, and for lighter hail, they already have a strategy.

For bird now, I'm Michael Stein.