Natural History Wanderings

Birds do face very serious threats, but they are not from the ones the media is focusing on like the “Arkansas birds falling from the sky story”

As we read and learn more, the public is recognizing that the birds falling from the sky in Arkansas over New Year’s and similar die-offs are not that unusual.

According to USGS NWHC records:

“there have been 188 mortality events across the country involving 1,000 birds or more during the past 10 years (2000 – 2010). In 2009, individual events included one in which 50,000 birds died from avian botulism in Utah; 20,000 from the same disease in Idaho; and 10,000 bird deaths in Washington from a harmful algal bloom.:

To read more go to: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2677

The final report on the bird deaths in Arkansas is in and it has been concluded that the birds died from blunt trauma.  Blackbirds have poor night vision and don’t normally fly at night.  Fireworks or other large noises scared the birds,  they took off in a panic, and crashed into buildings, trees and utility poles.  To read about the final report on the bird deaths in Arkansas: Bird Deaths Mostly Solved; Fish Kill Still A Mystery

Cornell  Lab of Ornithology eNews reports on the more concerning threats to birds:

“Is There Really an “Aflockalypse?” It’s Not the One in the News.”

“Should we be worried about an ‘aflockalypse?’  Yes, but not about the media coverage focusing on isolated events that affect only a few hundred or thousand birds at a time. It’s the constant, chronic losses from habitat destruction and other causes that should truly concern us. Consider that 100 million birds are estimated to die from window collisions in the United States alone each year. That’s more than 270,000 per day on average. Cats are estimated to kill another 100 million per year. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; habitat loss and degradation are the largest causes of massive declines in the numbers of birds.”

For more information go to : https://secure3.birds.cornell.edu/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=2067&srctid=1&erid=5546549