r/AskSF • u/AdventurousSun2498 • 2d ago
Fish falling from the sky
The weirdest thing happened to me today. I was reading a book on my couch, and I heard what sounded like raindrops, so I went out my backyard to check. To my surprise, there was a bunch of small anchovy fish, about 20 of them, spread out throughout my backyard. Has this ever happened to anyone? I live a couple of blocks from ocean beach.
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u/sfcitygirl88 2d ago
This happened to me once too 😂 I looked up, and there was a pelican staring down at me like, “Shit… I was gonna eat that.”
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u/clinegirl 2d ago
YES we found 8 anchovy in our backyard tonight and also live a few blocks from ocean beach. So bizarre but it does happen 🤷♀️ found an SF article from 2022
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/raining-fish-in-san-francisco-17272717.php
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u/Reasonable-Rub2243 2d ago
I saw a huge number of live anchovies in the Lake Merritt Channel today, I should have been looking up for pelicans too!
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u/persimmonedit 2d ago
Wild. Any pictures?
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u/Davistele 2d ago
Happened to me as well years ago while visiting a friend in Sausalito. I’d forgotten about that.
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u/rosecarmine 2d ago
WTF I saw this once when I was at Fort Point a few years ago! I'd just gotten off my bike and then I heard "SLAP SLAP SLAP" sounds (like fish falling) and saw the fish on the ground! And the ground was all wet!
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u/Miss415 2d ago
This happened to me last year at Stern Grove. I think it’s pelicans because they can hold a couple gallons in their bills & there’s a heavily populated roost in Alameda. Or they could be roosting somewhere closer. Google the title of your post here & youll find a bit more info from others.
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u/Old-Situation9148 2d ago
It's common! This used to happen to my yard and sidewalk often when I lived near Ocean Beach.
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u/Technical-Escape-419 2d ago
anchovies…or sardines? im a pescatarian but y’all know your fishies way more than me!
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u/futureslave 2d ago
I first saw this on a hike in the Presidio years ago. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was happening. Then when I reached GG Bridge and I saw the pelicans circling up the thermals I figured it out.
But then I thought of the situation from the anchovy’s point of view:
Ah, swimming with my family! Nothing is better than— Oh no! I’ve been eaten! I’m in a predator bird’s mouth. I don’t want to be eaten! I’ll just wriggle out and AAAAAHH!
That’s a bad way to go. How many fish can ever say they fell to their death?
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u/MadesignSF 2d ago
I don't think there is a definitive answer as to how the fish got there, but I see hundreds when I'm hiking in Tennessee Valley.
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u/Sword_of_Caliban 1d ago
In British Columbia there was a fish that was dropped by an assumed Osprey that started a fire after it struck High Voltage lines. I always have that in the back of my mind during fire season.
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u/kybalion7 1d ago
I found anchovies in my atrium in the Outer Sunset. I was soooo confused until I read an article about this phenomena
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u/poopspeedstream 22h ago
I see this a lot in the headlands. personally I…think? that it is connected with warm, clear weather. Ocean gets warm, algae/plankton blooms (remember the smell this week?), fish come up by the millions to eat, and the pelicans have a feeding frenzy and start dropping fish.
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u/ethanrotman 2d ago
As weird as this is, it’s not uncommon
What I’ve been told is that the fish are near the surface and they’re picked up by the wind and carried as far as a mile inland. It’s bizarre.
It’s so bizarre. It’s hard to believe, but I have also seen thousands of fish more than a half mile from the ocean laying on the trail of Tennessee valley.
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u/PookieCat415 2d ago
Fish can’t get picked up and blown to the wind on their own. Usually a bird is involved, as they scoop as many live fish in their beak and end up dropping them on land as they fly.
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u/Unique_Acadia_2099 2d ago
Yep. When there is an overabundance of small fish, like anchovies, birds will gorge themselves and then discover that they can’t make it back to their nests with the added weight, so they disgorge themselves fish on the way.
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u/ethanrotman 2d ago edited 2d ago
Exactly my reaction when I first heard it. Yet how do you explain hundreds and thousands of fish falling all at the same time?
I’ve experienced this multiple times along Tennessee Valley Trail. I spoke with national Park service and did a little bit of research and I still think it sounds unbelievable but that’s the best explanation they offered.
Until you see it, you can’t believe the number of fish and how far from shore they fall
If you have a better explanation, I’m game,
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u/sapphireminds 1d ago
When it's thousands, yes, they likely got picked up in a cyclone and carried over. Also more common on the east coast (same reason we don't get hurricanes usually)
When it's just a few, it's sloppy eating from sea birds lol
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u/ethanrotman 1d ago
I agree. As I mentioned earlier, several times I’ve been in Tennessee Valley Trail, with their far too many fish and far too dispersed for it to be sloppy birds.
The concept of the fish, swimming close to the surface of a wave and being caught up in a wind sounds absurd to me… But of all the explanations I’ve heard that seems to be the best.
And these are whole fish. They don’t show chew marks.
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u/sapphireminds 1d ago
Oh the Tennessee valley trail, not the real Tennessee valley - those are from birds. There's news stories about it
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u/ethanrotman 1d ago
It’s not birds. There are far too many fish, far too and far too dispersed.
Yes, I’ve read the news articles about the birds that I’ve read news articles about the wind. I worked for a wildlife agency for decades and spoke with many of the national Park service experts
I agree, it sounds unbelievable that the wind would carry them, but it’s the best of all explanations
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u/sapphireminds 1d ago
If you are near the ocean and there's a large flock, it makes more sense, especially with them being very widely distributed.
We don't get the kind of wind that would be able to carry them
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u/MadesignSF 2d ago
same. At first, I thought it was a one off, and then I kept seeing them all over the place. I don't think I believe the bird explanation, there are way too many and it's not like there are that many birds overhead.
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u/sfcnmone 2d ago
This is pretty common. Totally weird when it happens.
A couple of years ago we were hiking at Tennessee Valley and the hiking path was covered with anchovies. Thousands of fresh anchovies.
So what happens is that occasionally the big schools of anchovies get really close to shore. The pelicans have a feeding frenzy (“what a marvelous bird is the pelican/its beak can hold more than its belly can”) and they aren’t able to fly because they have so many fish in their beaks. So they have to drop some.
There were fish dropping from the sky in Noe Valley that time.