Officials Report Drunk Birds Commiting Suicide

The mystery of mass bird deaths has been solved AGAIN. Officials in Romania report dead Starlings drank themselves to death by eating leftover grapes from winemaking process, not kidding, here's the link...
www.myfoxaustin.com...
I would caution residents of Napa Valley to watch for drunk birds falling into swimming pools as usually happens every year at harvest time.
In addition the death of over 100 birds on highway 101 in California has been attributed to a collision with a tractor trailer, officials say the truck driver did not report it but "a witness called later and said it looked like they were commiting suicide" another link...
weather.blogs.pressdemocrat.com...
Both cases involved Starlings who tend to fly in swarms that are circular in pattern and so large they are called "black sun" in some areas.
I did some math and apparently this suicidal flock prefers the cube pattern.
Avg. wingspan- 37-42cm/ split the difference you get 15.74 inches
Height of semi truck- 13 feet/ 156 inches
Width of semi truck- 8.5 feet/ 102 inches
If these were the Blue Angels of Starlings and flew wing tip to tip, the truck is 6.48 "starlings" wide.
You would need 15.43 rows of tip to tip starlings (vertical rows) X 6.48 (horizontal rows) this leaves no allowance for ground clearance and assumes they are capable of literally scraping the pavement with their belly as they fly in a precise cube pattern stacked like pancakes and flying wing tip to wing tip.
Happens all the time.

If this isn't meant to be funny (Although I doubt that) I apologise but you just made me giggle a little bit...

Finally some humour amongst all the sadness! Well Done!

I find myself coming on ATS in the last few days just to see when and where the next mass die off occurred. This is becoming a daily event. There is nothing normal about this. What in the world is going on?

Those making a mess with grapes should clean them up immediately - alcohol poisoning. Also those that throw rice at weddings should not do so - the birds eat the rice, it swells in their stomachs and they die. But suicide - a flock in the sky and all decide its time to drop and die - that's not common or natural.

Originally posted by Trublbrwing
Avg. wingspan- 37-42cm/ split the difference you get 15.74 inches
Height of semi truck- 13 feet/ 156 inches
Width of semi truck- 8.5 feet/ 102 inches
If these were the Blue Angels of Starlings and flew wing tip to tip, the truck is 6.48 "starlings" wide.
You would need 15.43 rows of tip to tip starlings (vertical rows) X 6.48 (horizontal rows) this leaves no allowance for ground clearance and assumes they are capable of literally scraping the pavement with their belly as they fly in a precise cube pattern stacked like pancakes and flying wing tip to wing tip.
Happens all the time.

Your forgetting depth in your equation. They were not in a 2D flat sheet, but rather a 3D cluster of them.

reply to post by Trublbrwing


OMG, I'd like to know who's getting paid to come up with these "explanations."

Good lord... how stupid do they think we are???

reply to post by TheLieWeLive


News Flash!!!
70,000 people died today ( and every day ).
Massive human die off !!!

reply to post by Trublbrwing


Well, I'm too sick and too lazy to do all those math computations... but just today, around 300 birds fell dead on I-65 near Athens/Huntsville, Alabama, because "They ran into a truck".


www.whnt.com...


Okay then. Crazy Birds.

Originally posted by spikester
reply to post by TheLieWeLive

 

News Flash!!!
70,000 people died today ( and every day ).
Massive human die off !!!

YES, if it happen all in one town. That is the point of this whole thing. The deaths are in bulk. World wide I bet millions of bird die every day but to have a small area cover with dead birds it not nominal by any means. Now if you found your 70,000 humans dead all pile up in a small area then what.

"Town of 70,000 dead oh, that is nominal. It happens everyday"

reply to post by spikester


That could be the reaction of a lot of people too but although I'm not willing to subscribe to either side of the argument, people dying en masse every day seems an unfortunate thing to let us slip by. The fact that animals are dying off with varying theories and explanations and it's become widespread enough to be noticed in the media......surely something could be in that?

reply to post by fixer1967


up to 150 species become extinct every day.

reply to post by curious7


there may be more than one cause, up to 150 species become extinct every day. oops, double post.

Originally posted by spikester
reply to post by fixer1967

 

up to 150 species become extinct every day.

I know that. I have an odd feeling about all these mass die offs. I have a feeling they will stop just as mysterious as they startred and we will never know what really caused them.

Well if that's the case why are there no massive die offs every Halloween. People leave their jack'o'lanterns out far too long. Why do we not have kamikaze squirrels throwing themselves under moving vehicles en masse at that time of year?

The explanations are hilarious, but offensive. It shows the amount of intelligence they think we have.

It's too much!

reply to post by ScorpioRising

Since we're inventing new terms like "instant tsunami" and "washing machine like storm" I wanted to get involved with "tongue in cheek sarcastic wise guy".
Enjoy!

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by Trublbrwing
Avg. wingspan- 37-42cm/ split the difference you get 15.74 inches
Height of semi truck- 13 feet/ 156 inches
Width of semi truck- 8.5 feet/ 102 inches
If these were the Blue Angels of Starlings and flew wing tip to tip, the truck is 6.48 "starlings" wide.
You would need 15.43 rows of tip to tip starlings (vertical rows) X 6.48 (horizontal rows) this leaves no allowance for ground clearance and assumes they are capable of literally scraping the pavement with their belly as they fly in a precise cube pattern stacked like pancakes and flying wing tip to wing tip.
Happens all the time.

Your forgetting depth in your equation. They were not in a 2D flat sheet, but rather a 3D cluster of them.

Sorry,
19-22 cm long
weight 60-90g
Another fascinating piece of trivia- The recently accident prone Starling was introduced to North America by a man named Eugene Schieffelin who released aproximately 60-100 birds into Central Park NYC in the year 1890.
Rumor has it he was attempting to release every bird species from the collected works of Shakespeare into America.
Every one of the more than 200 million Starlings in North America are direct descendents of those 60-100 birds.
At the current rate we should be back down to about 60-100 birds in a few years.
Just bad luck I guess.

Originally posted by spikester
reply to post by TheLieWeLive

 

News Flash!!!
70,000 people died today ( and every day ).
Massive human die off !!!

We covered this DAYS AGO spikester. Unless they died in groups of 50-5000 in the same place under mysterious circumstances there is no comparison.
Sorry.

Originally posted by 1curious1
reply to post by Trublbrwing

 

Well, I'm too sick and too lazy to do all those math computations... but just today, around 300 birds fell dead on I-65 near Athens/Huntsville, Alabama, because "They ran into a truck".


www.whnt.com...


Okay then. Crazy Birds.

I did not know about this one at the time of my post. One of the viewer comments below the story asks a good question, where are the broken windshields, dents, broken headlights?
This is getting ridiculous. Next time someone says it's normal pinch them REAL HARD on the arm and ask if they are awake.

Originally posted by spikester
reply to post by fixer1967

 

up to 150 species become extinct every day.

What the heck does that have to do with the topic at hand? Are you suggesting this is the first documented voluntary extintion in the history of the animal kingdom? They just went nuts!!!!
That's kind of like responding to a post on the sudden unexplained deaths of thousands of animals with how many people die every day. That would be stupid.

Originally posted by Trublbrwing

Originally posted by spikester
reply to post by fixer1967

 

up to 150 species become extinct every day.

What the heck does that have to do with the topic at hand? Are you suggesting this is the first documented voluntary extintion in the history of the animal kingdom? They just went nuts!!!!
That's kind of like responding to a post on the sudden unexplained deaths of thousands of animals with how many people die every day. That would be stupid.

That is what I was wondering. It is so off topic it is not funny.