A sign?

4,000 Dead Birds Drop From the Sky

About 10 p.m. Friday, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling out of the sky over this town about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and scaring anyone who happened to be outside.


The cause is still being determined, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Of the more than 4,000 birds that fell on Beebe, 65 samples have been sent to labs, one in Arkansas, the other in Wisconsin. Some results may be available as soon as Monday, Mr. Stephens said.


For now, state officials are speculating that the birds may have died as a result of stress, startled by fireworks in the area, or perhaps by lightning. But, Mr. Stephens acknowledged that the cause may never be known.


One thing is almost certain: the bird drop is not related to the 83,000 fish that died a few days earlier in the western part of the state, the biggest fish kill in Arkansas that anyone can remember. They were spotted by anglers last week and reported to the Game and Fish Commission, which spent New Year’s Eve measuring and counting dead fish that had spread out for nearly 20 miles.


In that case, the victims were almost all drum, and almost all younger ones. That suggests the culprit was disease, said Mark Oliver, the commission’s chief of fisheries. He said that fish kills were not uncommon, especially in winter when fish are packed more closely, but he did not recall one of this size.


The likelihood of a connection between dead fish in a river on one side of the state and dead birds from the sky in another is pretty much nil (nor is there any connection between these events and the yearlong swarm of mini-earthquakes in the center of the state).


But it is all rather odd.


Becky Short, who also sits on the City Council, said that in addition to the controversial fireworks theory, people have already begun joking about the biblical end times and U.F.O.’s.


Her conclusion was simpler.


“Looks like some sort of phenomenon happened,” she said.

A phenomenon to be sure. Maybe Mother earth is sending a message to us -if we are open to hear the message. Clean up our acts or we may be next!