Have you ever wondered why the birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous movie The Birds seemed deranged? Hitchcock may have been inspired by a real event that took place in Capitola, California in 1961.
Shearwaters, a type of oceanic bird, ingested anchovies that were feeding on a bloom of toxic algae. The neurotoxin produced by the algae moved through the food web from algae to fish to bird and caused the birds to fly erratically.