More Dead Birds. With a Twist?

Anyone remember this

DDT and the silent spring.
Maybe something is being spayed or in the environment that is causing this.

en.wikipedia.org...

BTW: No dead birds here,yet.

I noticed it here in Colorado. I was going to post something about it on Monday, but the last time I posted about a seemingly large amount of squirrel deaths, people thought I was being a bit dramatic.
Anyway, I run daily. 3 miles in the morning. On Monday, I counted 10-12 dead baby birds on the sidewalks during my 3 miles. A few were together. Others were randomly placed. They were babies though. Very much intact.

Have you had any high winds? I'm pretty sure the ones I found in my yard were displaced due to the wind blowing the trees so hard.

I live in Denver & have a nest close to the edge of my roof. I went out Sunday to sweep off the porch as it was the first warm day here. When I got to the bottom of my porch there were 3 dead baby birds laying there, just like in your pictures, no feathers yet. I got a little upset, found it hard to really look too close, but I don't think they had been there more than a few hours. I gently swept them off into the weeds & covered them with more weeds.
I see the different breeds of birds here picking on each other & fighting. (Last Fall I saw a "bully" bird fly down to the ground with a smaller brown bird in it's claws, let it go & peck at it. It was horrible. I yelled & scared it off, but it's victim was in such bad shape...well, the neighbors cat had a mercifully quick snack.) From that, I assumed that maybe the big black & white "bully" birds had gotten into the nest, killed & dropped the babies over the side. The only other I've seen was last summer when a baby was laying in the same area but it was fully developed with feathers.

reply to post by crazydaisy


Daisy, there has been no spraying for anything here. I don`t even have my yard treated because of the rabbits,etc that roam thru here. We have had a sudden influx of turtles and what appear to be crawfish "towers" in my back yard.

But haven`t even seen a blackbird in my yard or the empty properties next to me today.

reply to post by MJZoo


Well we are prone to some high winds here, but once again, these nests are under the awning of that building. And when I say that I mean they are tucked up under the tin roof of the awning and above the guttering system. Very well protected. It would be like the castle of birds nests.

So we have people reporting seeing dead baby birds in both Arkansas and Colorado (Denver specifically). I think we should check for similarities in recent weather such as high winds, bad lightning, etc.

reply to post by JayinAR


That would give weight to your saying the mother just throws them out, that awning was far from the street where the photos were taken. Too far for wind in my opinion, judging from photos.

reply to post by Denco


Odd. Keep us updated if more start to appear please.

reply to post by JayinAR


Do you have a vet that might be interested in taking a look at these dead birds? I would hope if you can find a vet willing to take a look at these baby birds, they might be able to shed more information on the cause of death. If I were a vet, I would be very interested in this!

reply to post by My.mind.is.mine


Well the thing is that here in Arkansas, at least my area, we have had calm and hot weather this week. Last week was the end of the deluge that has contributed to the flooding of the Mississippi of late, but this week has been hot and sticky. Like summer come early. Leads me to strongly believe this is illborne.

reply to post by justsaying


Excellent suggestion. I know of a guy who is studying to become a vet. He can steer me in the right direction, I'd imagine. Thanks.

reply to post by My.mind.is.mine


Or changes in radiation levels?
This is a good source of tracking on-going events.
Colorado,higher elevation, Arkansas,fracking.

reply to post by kdog1982


You know, I actually thought about this as well. Higher radiation amounts could show itself in young and fragile animals before anything else. The canary in the coal mine type deal.

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by My.mind.is.mine

 

Well the thing is that here in Arkansas, at least my area, we have had calm and hot weather this week. Last week was the end of the deluge that has contributed to the flooding of the Mississippi of late, but this week has been hot and sticky. Like summer come early. Leads me to strongly believe this is illborne.

Summer coming to soon and stressing the young birds could be a possibility.The heat.
And the flooding with who knows what kind of chemicals floating around there.
But we,here in Kentucky have had some flooding and it has become suddenly very hot here
recently but no reports that I know of ,of chicks dying because of it.

But,I must add,is the lightening bugs are already out.Very unusual this early in the season.

While something unexplainable may be at work in the deaths there are a few reasons for very young birds falling to the ground.

1. Rival species will toss unattended babies out of nests.

2. Parasitical species (Brown-headed cowbirds for example) lay eggs in the nest of other birds, their eggs hatch first and they tend to dispose of their smaller, later and weaker hosts.

3. High winds will knock birds out of nests.

4. Sick babies will be discarded by mothers.

Without knowing all the facts concerning these ill-fated deaths I don't know that we can imagine some unusual and sinister things at work, it is baby bird season, the weather has been deplorable all across the country and many babies die before their first year.

Last year I witnessed four tiny hatchlings drop 50 feet from a nest tree about 15 minutes apart. Plop, plop, plop. Someone overhead was systematically booting them out. At that age they were too tender to survive. I never could see the culprit but there are many types of birds nesting in our big oak trees.

I noticed a dead robin in the middle of our street today. It lay there all day, nothing offered to eat it, or even sniff it. The unfortunate rabbit that got squished a few yards up the road had a turkey vulture on it in half an hour after the rabbit got ran over. The close up picture reminded me of a baby jay. Jays and some other birds also throw chicks or eggs out of different species' nests in order to have the other parents raise their young. Could that be happening there? Have you noticed more Blue Jays than usual?

reply to post by kdog1982


No doubt that the seasons are shortening and intensifying. We have been seeing it get exponentially worse the last few years. But this also brings to my mind the story about the mule dear in Wyoming dying off. They lost like 90% of their newborns this spring. Very odd. If it is all the weather, then the weather is getting way out of hand, wouldn't you say? I tend to think this particular thing is a matter of illness though. 90 temps in June is certainly not unheard of. And the last few weeks have been SO wet. Perfect for birds.

Originally posted by My.mind.is.mine
reply to post by JayinAR

 

That would give weight to your saying the mother just throws them out, that awning was far from the street where the photos were taken. Too far for wind in my opinion, judging from photos.

Birds don't just drop the dead babies, droppings, or even egg shells over the edge of the nest. They carry them away so that predators do not have an easy trail to follow to the nest. I have regularly watched Common Grackles drop the droppings of their offspring in my pool. I have also found dead baby birds in my pool regularly in May and early June, but none so far this year.

reply to post by tncryptogal


Well no I haven't. But that is a good idea. I will start looking into that possibility tomorrow. Boy if that's the case there is a full-blown war going on there. haha.