Natural History Wanderings

Image via Wikipedia

Updated January 10, 2011

For a new posting that discusses  if these really were disasters go to this new article at Natural History Wanderings:  More on Bird and Fish Deaths

Two more articles that give some perspective on what is happening to the birds and is this really that unusual:

• Why Are Birds Falling From the Sky? (National Geographic)
  
• Bad news for us, or just for birds? (LA Times)

More dead birds and fish too from the Huffington Post:
Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Sweden, Millions Of Dead Fish Found In Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand

You may have already heard about the thousands of red-wing blackbirds, starlings and other birds that fell from the sky in Beebee, Arkansas on New Year’s Eve.  The birds appeared to die from the trauma of either hitting the ground or hitting something in the air.  These birds do not normally fly at night.  Investigations do not yet have a definite conclusion about what happened but possible causes are lightning, hail and fireworks.  Fireworks were used earlier that evening at New Year’s eve celebrations.

In another incident 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings and grackles were found dead in Labarre in southern Louisiana.  These bird did not show evidence of trauma. Read more at  LA Times Dead birds falling from sky still mystify experts and CNN Falling birds likely died of trauma, Arkansas officials say – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs.

Related Articles

• Hundreds of Thousands of Beebes (audublog.org)
• 4 and 20 blackbirds, and 3,000, dead in the sky (thenewstribune.com)