all right, what's up with these birds?

[PETE'S BROTHER]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110104/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_dead_birds

South.

First, New Year's Eve fireworks were blamed in central Arkansas for making thousands of blackbirds confused, crashing into homes, cars and each other. Then 300 miles to the south in Louisiana, power lines likely killed about 450 birds, littering a highway near Baton Rouge.

It's almost certainly a coincidence the events happened within days of each other, Louisiana's state wildlife veterinarian Jim LaCour said Tuesday. "I haven't found anything to link the two at this point."

Mass bird deaths aren't uncommon. The U.S. Geological Service's website listed about 90 mass deaths of birds and other wildlife from June through Dec. 12. There were five deaths of at least 1,000 birds, with the largest near Houston, Minn., where parasite infestations killed about 4,000 water birds between Sept. 6 and Nov. 26.

In Louisiana, the birds died sometime late Sunday or early Monday in the rural Pointe Coupee Parish community of Labarre, about 30 miles northwest of Baton Rouge. The birds — a mixed flock of red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings — may have hit a power line or vehicles in the dark, LaCour said. Two dozen of them had head, neck, beak or back injuries.

About 50 dead birds were near a power line 30 or 40 feet from Louisiana Highway 1. About a quarter-mile away, a second group of 400 or more stretched from the power line and across the highway, he said.

Dan Cristol, a biology professor and co-founder of the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William & Mary, said the Louisiana birds may have been ill or startled from their roost, then hit the power line.

"They don't hit a power line for no reason," he said.



elvis? you fuckin' around down there

[fryingdutchman]

No biggie...

Probably just an Al Qaeda sponsored chemical/biological attack. When the humans start dropping or there are unexplained "cancer clusters", maybe there will be a better explanation.

*end of conspiracy theorist rant*

[Seshmeister]

Surely it's some sort of government death ray...

[Jagermeister]

They got confused in a storm. I guess black birds don't fly at night and when they do bad things happen.

Really that is what they think happened. No big deal as they are nasty fuckin birds anyway.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

what if they were white birds, jagy?

[Jagermeister]

what if they were white birds, jagy?

I don't judge birds by the color of there feathers.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

I don't judge anything by the color of there feathers.

i'm proud of you, enlightened one...

[Jagermeister]

Hey!!!

[FORD]

Despite what Paul McCartney wrote on the White Album, blackbirds aren't usually singing, or flying "in the dead of night", so odds are their night vision isn't too great. The whole flock flying into a power line seems a bit ridiculous though.

Why does this remind me of the short lived TV series "Flash Forward" for some reason?

[PETE'S BROTHER]

and, or...<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fjj32CavzU0?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fjj32CavzU0?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

[lesfunk]

Blackbirds often dont get up till noon anyway. maybe they were sleeping

[Blaze]

Birds Falling From Sky and Other Bizarre Animal Deaths



Benjamin Radford
LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist
LiveScience.com – 1 hr 12 mins ago

The recent, mysterious deaths of thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and Louisiana around New Year's Eve has made news around the world and defied a conclusive answer. The best explanation so far is that fireworks may have scared or disoriented the birds, causing them to fatally injure themselves flying into buildings, water towers and trees.

As bizarre and unexplained as these events may seem, they are only the latest of many mysterious animals deaths over the years. Here are a few cases:

Frog Rains
Charles Fort, an early collector of reports about strange and curious phenomena, noted the following in his tome "The Book of the Damned," first published in 1919: "A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at Kansas City, Mo." This report first appeared in the July 12, 1873 issue of "Scientific American." Fort noted dozens of other, similar reports from around the world, including England, France, Germany and Tahiti. Scientists think that strong winds could, under the right circumstances, lift and carry small, light animals (including small frogs and fish) short distances, for example from a pond to a nearby street.

Fishy Storm
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times (cited in "The World's Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Times," 1992, Barnes & Noble Books), on Dec. 19, 1984, drivers on L.A.'s Santa Monica Freeway found themselves driving over fish and crabs during a storm. Most of the animals seemed to be alive (at least temporarily), and some speculated that the animals might have somehow fallen out of the sky with the rain. The California Highway Patrol, however, suggested the animals had simply fallen off a delivery truck on the way to a restaurant, though there were no reports of accidents in the area.

Suicidal Geese?
In August 2005, two flocks of geese were discovered dead on a farm in Manitoba, Canada. More than 200 of the lifeless birds were littered across a field. Strangely, there were no external injuries: No gunshot wounds or any other apparent reason they would have fallen out of the moonless night sky. Officials suspected that someone (or something) had poisoned the geese, but the case took a bizarre twist when toxicology tests came back negative. In fact, the injuries were consistent with a mass suicide; the birds seemingly flew directly into the ground. Canadian wildlife officials were puzzled, but a study finally concluded that the geese had become disoriented in the darkness, lost sight of the horizon, and accidentally smashed into the ground. (Similar pilot error has killed many animals and people, including John F. Kennedy, Jr.)

Exploding Toads
In 2005, Germany experienced one of the strangest animal deaths on record. Over 1,000 toads simply exploded for no apparent reason, splattering their gory intestines everywhere. According to a report from "The Independent" (U.K.), "The tabloid press went into overdrive, dubbing the carnage site in Hamburg's Altona district the 'Pond of Death' and warning children and dogs to stay away. Theories ran wild that toads were committing suicide or were croaking because of a virus spread by South American race horses." A zoologist autopsied the toads and discovered that they had been attacked by birds, and their livers eaten. The toad's natural body defenses caused them to puff up - and with their livers missing, gruesomely explode.

Horses and Mules
Nearly two dozen horses and mules were found mysteriously killed in rural El Paso County, Colo., in October 2005. Twenty-three animals were discovered dead in two separate incidents over the course of about three weeks. Most of the beasts were thought to have been shot to death, because some were found with what appeared to be bullet wounds in their necks and hides. Yet further investigation revealed that the injuries (at about an inch deep) were too shallow to have killed the animals. No other obvious injuries or marks were found on the horses and mules, and some suspected they might instead have been poisoned for some reason. Finally investigators concluded that most of the animals, if not all of them, had been struck by lightning.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

fuckin' chupacabras

[Blaze]

What kind of bras?

[BITEYOASS]

Well some more realistic reasons would be poisoning from all of the dispersants used on the gulf oil spill or the toxic chemicals used in fracking the nearby gas wells.