The Night the Birds Fell

New Year’s Eve 2011. Businesses were closing early; people started gathering at bars, clubs, restaurants, and each other’s homes. Friends, families, and people all over the world were getting ready to end this year and greet the coming new year with a bang and some Champaign. Only something was amiss that night. Although people were having a great time, it was about to get strange on the streets of Beebe, Arkansas.

At 11:30 pm on New Year’s Eve, reports were coming in from Beebe, Arkansas, that birds were falling dead from the sky. Officials estimate around 5,000 Red-Winged Blackbirds, European Starlings, Common Grackles, and Brown-Headed Cowbirds fell dead before midnight.

There were reporting’s of fireworks going off before midnight, and that’s what sent the birds out flying. “Right before they began to fall, it appears that really loud booms from professional-grade-fireworks – 10 to 12 of them, a few seconds apart were reported in the general vicinity of a roost of birds,” said Karen Row, an ornithologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. “There were other, legal fireworks set off at the same time that might have then forced the birds to fly over than they normally do, below treetop level, and these birds have very poor night vision and do not typically fly at night.” From then on, scientists say that they had crashed into cars, buildings, trees, and other objects. They think that is what caused the bird’s death.

Apparently, 5,000 birds randomly dying is a reasonably small amount. These types of birds usually congregate for winter, and the record for the most amount of birds in one roost is 23 million birds. It doesn’t seem like scientists were too worried and that everything seemed normal.

Not only was Arkansas affected, but other countries had the same thing happen to them in the same week! Louisiana and Sweden also had reports of birds falling from the sky. However, if scientists think that it was caused by fireworks, then why was it reported in other places on a different day than New Year’s Eve. Yes, people do shoot off fireworks on the days leading up to New Year’s Eve but not to the degree of which would terrify that many birds at once.

I don’t think that all of those birds’ deaths were from fireworks creating loud sounds. If this were normal, why wouldn’t it have happened every year like this? Why wouldn’t the same type of thing happen on the Fourth of July? It was only one year that all of these birds dropped dead from the sky, and it must be from more than just firework displays. This is too unique for it just to be “loud noises from firework displays.” The only question is, what really is the cause for these bird’s death? Tell me your theories in the comments below.

Sites I used for research: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/1/110106-birds-falling-from-sky-bird-deaths-arkansas-science/ https://www.independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/2000-birds-fall-dead-from-the-sky-26610795.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html