Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Dead birds showering Western Australia town

Over the last month, thousands of dead birds have rained down on Esperance, Australia and nobody knows why. Quite a few species--including wattle birds, yellow-throated miners, new holland honeyeaters, crows, hawks, and pigeons--have all turned up by the dozens dead in residents' yards.


This can't be good . . .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would suspect that the "missing link" in this story (it's mentioned briefly at the end) is that at that time, the whole area around Esperance was hit by what was called a "superstorm" - a once in a generation event - caused by the combination of a tropical cyclone from the north, and an Antartic storm from the south. They might not know what specifically killed the birds, but it's a fair bet that the storm had something to do with it.

Mac said...

I'm not sure the storm explanation works. This isn't an isolated event -- merely the latest.

Of course, it wouldn't be too surprising to discover that "once in a generation" storms are happening regularly now.

Anonymous said...

Something like this just happened in Austin, TX as well.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-08-austin-birds_x.htm?csp=34

Mac said...

I have a creepy feeling we're going to see more of it. Whatever "it" is...