Hundreds of migrating birds crash-landed at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground overnight, apparently mistaking a parking lot in a snowstorm for water. Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Army, says these are eared grebes, a species that can’t take off from land. Vogel says the Army’s own wildlife specialists and the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources are working to rescue the birds that survived.
"They’ll take the birds to a nearby pond on post, let ‘em rest there and then they’ll take off and continue their migration," Vogel tells KUER.
A similar event happened in December 2011, when thousands of grebes crash-landed on parking lots and football fields in St. George.