Environmental experts baffled as thousands of blackbirds literally drop dead from the sky
Mystery: 2,000 blackbirds drop dead in Arkansas sky
'Horrible. You couldn't even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad'
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:09 PM on 3rd January 2011
Residents of Beebe in Arkansas have been left baffled after more than 2,000 blackbirds fell to their deaths in a section of the city.
The birds fell in frightening quantities off Windwood Drive, leaving experts in the area scratching their heads over the cause of the phenomenon.
Some residents initially thought that the birds might have been poisoned - as many think the large influx of the birds around this time of year are a nuisance.
One resident said: 'Millions, millions fly over every night. You look up at the sky and it's just black.
Mystery deaths: As many as 2,000 blackbirds in the area of Beebe Arkansas literally dropped dead on New Year's Eve, baffling environmental experts
Aftermath: Dead blackbirds like on the front lawn of a Beebe resident's home. Birds litter lawns, roads and roofs in a one-mile area of the city
'Last night at about 10.30pm I came out here and saw a bird drop.'
In a matter of hours on New Year's Eve thousands of birds fell from the sky to their death.
Resident Melissa Weatherly told the local THVstation: 'It was horrible, you could not even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad.'
The unexplained event drew dozens of U.S. Environmental Services crews, who turned the usually quiet area into what looked like a scene from a disaster movie.
Quiet area: The otherwise event-free Windwood Drive in Beebe, Arkansas, has become the centrepoint of an unexplained phenomenon
Horror scene: Hundreds of birds litter a single street in Beebe. Residents are keen to learn the results of toxicology tests due to start tomorrow
Grisly work: Clean-up crews are expected to work all day today in an effort to clear up the birds' bodies, picking up the birds by shovel or by hand
Crews, in protective hazmat suits and masks, spent New Year's Day picking up the birds, walking between homes and climbing on roofs.
Even so, Beebe residents are no closer to knowing why the birds suddenly fell from the sky en masse.
One resident said: 'I asked these guys who are out here picking them up and they don't seem to know anything, nobody seems to know anything. It just kind of freaked everybody out.'
Red-winged blackbird: Experts have ruled out poisoning as a cause of death.
Officials with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission flew over the area and determined it's a one mile stretch.
Some ducks were also found dead in the area.
No one has been evacuated because the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) air test came back clean for toxins.
Officials will confirm their findings when they get the test results later this week, but they have thrown up a couple of possibilities.
They say lightning or high-altitude hail could be responsible - and even suggest that the birds could have been stunned or startled by New Year fireworks, falling to the ground and dying on impact.
But the fireworks theory does not fit in with the time frame of the birds starting to fall around 11.30pm on New Year's Eve.
One thing that the Game and Fish Commission's Karen Rowe has ruled out is poisoning.
She said: 'Since it only involved a flock of blackbirds, and only involved them falling out of the sky, it is unlikely they were poisoned, but a necropsy is the only way to determine if the birds died from trauma or toxin.'
She said testing would begin on Monday.
For the Pictures
/
Environmental experts baffled as thousands of blackbirds literally drop dead from the Sky
