4 and 20 blackbirds, and 3,000, dead in the sky

Earlier Friday, a tornado killed three people in Cincinnati, Ark., about
150 miles away, but most of the bad weather was already past Beebe when
the birds died.

Rowe initially said poisoning was possible, but
unlikely. Birds of prey and other animals, including dogs and cats, ate
several of the dead birds and suffered no ill effects.

"Every dog and cat in the neighborhood that night was able to get a fresh snack," Rowe said.


Red-winged blackbirds are the among North America's most abundant birds,
with somewhere between 100 million and 200 million nationwide,
according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. Rowe put the
number of dead in Beebe at "easily 3,000." Thousands can roost in one
tree.
"The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level"
to avoid explosions above, said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. "Blackbirds have poor eyesight, and
they started colliding with things."

In an unrelated incident, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said
about 83,000 drum fish washed up along a 17-mile stretch of the Arkansas
River last week. The commission said the fish kill appeared to have
been caused by disease, but test results will take about a month to come
back.

Paul Duke filled three five-gallon buckets with dead birds on New Year's
Day. "They were on the roof of the house, in the yard, on the
sidewalks, in the street," said Duke, a suspension supervisor at a
nearby school. A few dead birds still littered town streets Monday.

The
birds will not be missed. Large roosts like the one at Beebe can have
thousands of birds that leave ankle- to knee-deep piles of droppings in
places. On Monday, a few live birds chirped and hopped from tree to tree
behind the Roberts' home.

"The whole sky turns black every morning and every night," Roberts said.
Red-winged blackbirds are the among North America's most abundant birds,
with somewhere between 100 million and 200 million nationwide,
according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. Rowe put the
number of dead in Beebe at "easily 3,000." Thousands can roost in one
tree.

The Game and Fish Commission shipped carcasses to the
Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife
Health Center in Madison, Wis. Researchers at the University of
Georgia's wildlife disease study group also asked for a set of birds.
Test results could be back in a week.

A few grackles and a couple of starlings were also among the dead. Those species roost with blackbirds, particularly in winter.

"They
died from massive trauma," said Game and Fish Commission spokesman
Keith Stephens, citing a report from the state poultry lab where the
birds were examined. The injuries were primarily in the breast tissue,
with blood clotting and bleeding in the body cavities.

Residents heard loud fireworks just before the birds started hitting the ground.

Bad weather was to blame for earlier bird kills in Arkansas.

In
2001, lightning killed dozens of mallards at Hot Springs, and a flock of
dead pelicans was found in the woods about 10 years ago, Rowe said. Lab
tests showed that they, too, had been hit by lighting.

In 1973,
hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Ark., on the day before
hunting season. Some of the birds were caught in a violent storm's
updrafts and became encased in ice before falling from the sky. Some
were described as bowling balls with feathers.