aflockalypse

Once again, birds are mysteriously dropping out of the sky dead, and, as always, the media treats it as if this continuing mystery is happening for the first time. This time, the mystery is unfolding in Winnepeg, Manitoba in Canada. Roughly 40 dread grackles were collected last Wednesday and given to the province’s chief veterinarian. 20 more were found on the roof of a building, most dead and others in death throes. An initial examination of the birds’ stomach contents did not reveal anything abnormal, and further toxicology tests are being undertaken at this time.
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Is this a return to Aflockalypse? It’s happened before, and this time it happened along a highway in California: Over 100 dead birds were found there. Dead birds have also recently been reported in Missouri.

In the Huffington Post, Travis Walter Donovan writes that the California birds "were intact and had not been shot."
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Here’s a possible cause of the aflockalypse: The company that makes Scotts Miracle-Gro fertilizer for your lawn could also be killing your songbirds.

Scotts pled guilty to charges that they illegally put insecticides into its "Morning Song" and "Country Pride" brands of bird seed. In 2008, Scotts distributed 73 million packages of bird seed coated with the insecticide Storcide II that was intended to keep insects from destroying the seed when it was broadcast onto your lawn or put into a feeder.
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Hundreds of dead starlings dropped from the sky in Laurel, Maryland recently. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. This time, the mass deaths are being blamed on everything from fireworks to bad weather.

The birds fell out of the sky onto a highway, during a weekday commute. On the local ABC News affiliate website, Brad Bell, Jason Cherkis and Stephen Teschider quote Laurel resident Ray Wheltle as saying, "I travel this all the time and have never seen anything like that before."
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