This time of year the flocks of blackbirds are enormous in the rural area I live. Driving home last night as I turned onto a county road I noticed a blackbird fall in front of my car and then another and yet another. I stopped the car and birds were falling all around. Some were dead as they hit the ground,some appeared stunned. Hard to put a number on how many there were but they were still falling from the sky when I proceeded to the next section line. I've read about similar instances but never seen this happen in person. There were no strange weather conditions other than being unseasonably warm. There are a set of high voltage transmission lines near the area.

The common grackle and the brown headed cowbird will often fly together during migrations and it is not uncommon to see thousands.
It would seem that it they hit the transmission lines they would fall right there.

They we're flying toward the lines but had not reached them.

HI Ken:a

I saw this same phenomenon on a T.V. show several years ago. There was no explanation as to what was causing this.

Good luck,

Franchi

It's 2012 the end of the world...duh!!! One the serious side , very odd but as far as I know it's not too uncommon. We had a incident in the eastern part of the state a few years back when a lot of pelicans died off all of a sudden. I think they determined it was some disease that knocked them off. But at the time it was news around here.

Oh well.....Gods Will I guess.

Greg

We have them here too. If there were a few less neighbors I can tell you exactly why they'd be falling from the skies.

Ken, I hope your not pulling my chain because I just sent an email to one of our game biologists about this. The guy happens to be a good friend of mine and he has a rather serious attitude about wildlife.

Good One!!!

J.R.B Dead serious about this.
Hear is a similar instance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html?_r=0

There was nothing to cause any hysteria to the birds I witnessed.


On a lighter note;
I frequently have this happen when hunting game birds...well actually they oft times just surrender. Clay birds are known to break in the trap at my call of "Pull"

Stay thirsty my friend!!!

Our tax dollars at work? Might be a Wildlife Services action in your neighborhood to control blackbirds. There are a number of poisons they can apply in efforts to limit crop damage from blackbirds.

Not guite the same scenario but there's been a couple of articles in the uk press about fishermen witnessing whole flocks of birds dropping into the sea. I believe they were migratory birds and the opinion seemed to be high winds and storms may have blown them off course and they may have been exhausted.
Struck me as a bit odd as I'd imagine there must be different levels of fitness between birds of different ages and sizes so why would they all drop ? Unless they simply follow the leader.
Ooh, could it be the end of the world ! I've stocked up on ammo just in case. The downside is there may not be any bird so shoot and eat. Doh ! !
Back to the drawing board with that one then eh.

To my knowledge, only the European starling and house sparrow are not on the protected list. Fifty years ago I heard of a bounty that was placed on Red Winged Black birds for causing destruction in cotton fields.

If birds or mammals are causing crop destruction, the landowner/farmer has to get permission to stop this. I don't think poisoning is on that list in todays culture.

About 10-12 years ago my wife, Miss Jean, was working at the Ga. Welcome Center on U.S 301 near our home. Tourists began stopping in one morning with frantic descriptions of big black birds falling out of the sky. This was at the first of the West Nile Virus scare, and as she questioned them she got more and more skeptical. They said the birds were falling out of the sky and landing right down the middle of 301.

Jean called the county health department and relayed the stories she had been told by the tourists. The head guy got to thinking that they just might have been crows and, on a hunch, called one of my crow shooting buddies. He asked him, "Ya'll didn't happen to shoot crows near Wade Plantation this morning, did you?" "Yes, we did", was the reply. "What happened to the dead ones?" "We threw them in the back of our truck when we left." "Any chance they might have blown out on 301?" "Well, maybe." "My life would be made a lot easier for the next 24 hours if they got picked up. The TV news crews are on the way here from Augusta thinking it is a West Nile epidemic." "No problem", said my friend.

They had actually thrown out over 120 crows on the middle line of the highway, every 50 yards or so, for several miles. (One guy rides in the back of the truck and throws one out every so often. Don't ask, it is just an old tradition around here.) He had to take a 4-wheeler and ride the highway peeling crows up off the pavement. We still get a big laugh out of that one every time West Nile Virus is mentioned, years later.

SRH

This from the Center for Wildlife Damage Management website: "Toxicants Starlicide is a registered toxicant for blackbirds and starlings in feedlot situations. The active ingredient, 3-chloro-p-toluidine hydrochloride, is incorporated into pelletized bait at a concentration of 0.1% and sold commercially under the trade name Starlicide Complete®. Starlicide Technical® (98% active ingredient), which can be custom-mixed with livestock feed or other bait material, is also available through the USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services Program. Starlicide Technical® can be used only by or under supervision of Wildlife Services employees.

Starlicide is a slow-acting toxicant; birds usually die 1 to 3 days after feeding. Baiting programs are most successful in winter, especially with snow cover present, when alternate foods are scarce. A successful program generally requires a period of prebaiting with nontoxic bait to accustom the target blackbirds and starlings to feed at specific bait sites inaccessible to livestock in the feedlot. Monitoring to ensure that nontarget birds such as doves, song birds, and barnyard fowl do not feed at bait sites is essential.

If I had thought to get a movie from my phone....it would have gone viral!!!!! heh heh heh

It's the Republican's fault!

Very surprising goofy Ben is not blaming these mass starling deaths on the use of lead shot. Surely he could find some studies that show blackbirds inhale the lead fumes from hunters using lead shot, and they become so heavy they fall from the sky, being killed upon impact. Bright Boy apparently didn't pay attention to the first sentence of the above paragraph quoted from his post..."Starlicide is a slow acting toxicant; birds usually die 1 to 3 days after feeding." If Bright Boy had ever actually seen poisoned birds, he would know that they get sick and walk around as if drunk before becoming immobile, and then finally succumbing. They don't have the strength to fly with the flock and then suddenly fall out of the sky. Ben is clearly educated WAY beyond his limited intelligence. Still having problems with connecting those damned dots.

I always have to wonder when I hear of people getting panicky over such incidences, and of government experts getting involved, etc.

It's very obvious to me the simple answer, and the correct answer, to this issue is "Who cares?"

If Rev Al Sharpton and the gang at MSNBC get wind of this, they'll be calling it Racist. Notice how "they" are only killing Black Birds?