Some birds are very high strung, some are less hardy, some birds are very mellow and downright friendly. Bird's dispositions are varied and run the spectrum much like human personalities. I have held and studied thousands of different birds of many, many species and families, including lots of Icterids, (blackbirds) and some Starlings. With this in mind, I find it very unlikely that a noise or disturbance could have caused the demise of the Beebe, AR birds alone. I also think it unlikely that these birds were flying over the town in a nocturnal migration at the time of their fatal fall. While many birds migrate in the night, including blackbirds, and I am not an expert in movements of southeastern Icterids in the winter months, but I would guess that for the most part, long distance, night time migrating is over, and that these large flocks are moving from food source to food source, and roosting in large groups. I may be wrong on that, but I don't think so.
What I think people ought to be talking about more is the weather system moving through the area at the time. Although radar maps show that at the exact time of the incident there was not a strong cell over the exact area, a VERY strong front had just passed through, the same one that had spawned over 20 tornados in a rare weather event in the state of Arkansas earlier that day. Tornados very frequently pick items, and organisms up and deposit them elsewhere. I also think it feasible that extreme pressure changes and other potential weather related factors could have combined to cause any number of scenarios in which a large flock of birds could have met their untimely fates. I would not rule out a combination of noise disturbance and weather, nor would I rule out poisoning and weather combinations, or some freaky government experimentation.
It sure is weird that on the same day thousands of fish died nearby in the Arkansas River, and that cities all over United States are experiencing large numbers of birds, mostly blackbirds, dying in similarly inexplicable ways. There is a lot of speculation on the conspiracy chat rooms and websites about the potential causes and meanings of all of this. The theories range from the end of the world and polar shifts to the government's HAARP project causing atmospheric anomalies which combined to kill these birds.
I'm at a loss, and after seeing first hand in the Gulf what our government and media are capable of, I am not about to rule ANYTHING out. It is a strange phenomenon that's for sure, and I hope that all of the attention these incidents are receiving means that there will be widespread scrutiny of the causes and work done to find the causes, whatever they may be. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out, maybe??
I'm headed out to sea, in fact, writing this blog from the wheelhouse of the F.V. Timberwolf, be back on Friday, hope the world is still here, and that the government hasn't HAARPed every living creature by the time I get back, or that 2012 doesn't come early, or...(enter own doomsday scenario here). I was going to write about personal experiences with certain birds, including Dovekies and Green-tailed Towhees to illustrate the differences in bird demeanor, but that'll have to wait until Friday. Have a great couple of days!!
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