Sentinel Warning: What may the birds be telling us?

Disease takes toll on N.W. Ind. lake birds

At George Lake in Hammond, Ind., on Wednesday, you could see nearly 50 live waterfowl, three dead ones and one gadfly named Carolyn Marsh.

A birder and wildlife advocate, Marsh tipped state and federal officials to the deaths of 34 mallards, sandpipers, plovers, killdeer and other birds in what may be the only outbreak of avian botulism this summer in the eight-state region that includes Indiana and Illinois.

"It was heartbreaking," said Marsh, who found eight dead mallards on Sept. 3, and on Sept. 11 bagged nearly two dozen dead shorebirds for testing. Other birds died over the next few days.

"Some of them were fluttering or limping," she said. "They couldn't run or fly and finally died."

It will be interesting to see if the tests confirm the avian botulism explanation.

Thread by zenlover28

Re: Kentucky

There are no birds here.

[edit on 30-9-2005 by loam]

wow loam. I missed this one. Excellent job.

Siiting here speechless. So I'll just bump.

Thank you.

I'm actually surprised that I have been updating this thread for more than a year now.

I haven't really made any conclusions yet, and I suppose this thread has evolved into a purpose not too dissimilar from the Quake-watch threads on this board.

Researchers Baffled By Flocking Sea Birds

SAN FRANCISCO -- Scientists are stumped about why thousands of rare seabirds are suddenly being spotted on land in Northern California.

The small birds, called red phalaropes, live many miles off the Pacific coast and usually only land in the Arctic, where they breed and raise their young.

But bird enthusiasts began spotting the birds in Sonoma County on Christmas Day, and flocks have since been reported in residential neighborhoods in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Los Gatos, among other areas. The largest sighting was a flock of 1,200 near Half Moon Bay.

Scientists said many of the birds are emaciated and weak from flying in strong ocean storms, which may have pushed them onto land to look for food. Some have fallen victim to predatory cats and gulls, while others have reportedly been struck and killed by drivers along Highway 1.

...

Another interesting addition to this thread...

Given the condition of these birds, I am somewhat skeptical that storms alone account for their appearance. (It's not like there haven't been pacific storms before...or Christmas bird counts to detect their presence in significant numbers...)

This one is worth following.

Here is an excellent thread started by Where2Hide2006:

USA Is the Winter Over? Birds already flying North!!!

Mastwerp posted early on here that this is happening because "The magnetic field of the earth is changing."

I agree. The level of electromagnetic pollution from communications systems alone likely is a BIG factor. Birds DO navigate using EM sensors - it kicks in when visual cues aren't there, and also overrides information from visual cues if the data conflict.

Interestingly, humans have EM sensors in the pineal gland, and other animals have similar sensors too.

...EM pulses also impact living bodies at the atomic level - and can override genetic instructions for protein production, for example.

Sofi; do squirrels also have this ability? THey are mating like crazy around here. I've witnessed at least 20 squirrels playing the mating game over the weekend. It's entirely too early for that behavior!

Ran into this story, so thought I'd briefly update this thread.

Mysterious Bird Deaths

The mystery remains over why some birds fell from the sky dead Sunday evening.

We first told you about the birds Sunday night, and that some nearby residents were so worried they locked themselves inside their home. They told us they found about a dozen dead black birds littering the small community of West.

We spent much of the day in West talking to police and Department of Wildlife agents, who are trying to figure out why the birds mysteriously died.

Overnight, residents reported black birds falling out of the sky.

More...

Now here's the part I think is really strange...

And Wildlife experts admit they still don't know what killed the birds, but they're running tests on some of the carcasses they collected. And in the meantime, they warn this could happen again.

Huh? Why would they say that?

Here's a story I posted a while ago about birds in Vermont suffering from mercury poisoning. They had levels in their systems far beyond what anyone was expecting to find. There's nothing to suggest that this isn't a problem elsewhere, but who wants to spend money year in, year out, discovering the extent of the damage caused by industrial pollution, that we have no intention of fixing in any case?

:shk:

Anyway, here's the link. Thought I'd add it to the pile.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The good news is it's not the bird flu, according to the Texas Department of Wildlife. But officials say as a precaution, the dead birds should not be handled.

And there's no Mad Cow in the USA either.

Eat chicken. Eat beef. Spend money. Get credit. Don't worry.


Everything is under control. There are NO problems in America.


.

Whats the message...?

i'd guess that 'birds, biosphere sentinels', the anecdotes
present us with the Adapt or Perish message, on many levels.

some of the reports are just unfortunate circumstances or events,

but others are examples of environmental & evolutionary pressures

so, what's an answer?
here's one;

the serenity prayer

G0d, grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change,
the courage to change the things i can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Bird die-off perplexes scientists

Hundreds of the seabirds known as rhinoceros auklets have washed up on the Southern Oregon coast, and scientists haven't settled on an explanation for the die-off.

The birds seem to be in good shape off California and Washington, a researcher said.

"The questions in my mind are: Is this something that's widespread in Oregon? Is it a freak event like a storm or something that's going to last longer?" said seabird researcher Dr. Julia Parrish, an associate professor of biology at the University of Washington.

More...

When I have time, I'll update with additional stories I've run across in the last few days.

I know the birds here are saying something. They are saying "Its cold!!!" Many birds returned for the season and have started to nest. Tonight they find their nests burried in snow. Temps are also down into the teens. Temps will remain below freezing for about 36 consecutive hours. That can't be good for migratory birds.

This article is mainly about birds, and highlights weird weather happenings on the West Coast over the past couple of years.

Razor-thin birds wash up on shore

Map

With ocean temperatures warming to unusually high levels over the past three years, scientists noted a string of odd happenings affecting marine life from northern California to Alaska.

Here is what has happened this year:

1. British Columbia coast: Cassin's auklets washed up dead.
2. Oregon coast: Rhinoceros auklets washed up dead from the Columbia River to Newport.
3. Whidbey Island: A Humboldt squid, normally found in Mexico and Southern California, turned up on the beach on Jan. 2.

What happened in 2004-2005:

1. Triangle Island: Nesting success plummeted for the Cassin's auklet.
2. Lake Washington and Ship Canal: About half the 2004 run of sockeye salmon -- some 200,000 fish -- failed to materialize. Scientists suspect overly warm water was the cause.
3. Protection Island: Last summer, glaucous-winged gulls that normally fledge about 8,000 chicks produced only 88.
4. Tatoosh Island: Breeding started late for common murres last spring. Only about one-fifth fledged chicks, compared with up to four-fifths in a good year.
5. Northwest coast: Tens of thousands of common murres and Brandt's cormorants -- emaciated at a time of year they should be flush -- turned up dead on Oregon and Washington beaches in spring 2005.
6. Southern Washington to Alaska Panhandle: Numerous sightings of Humbolt squid, which normally live off Southern California and farther south, in October 2004.
7. Northwest coast: Gray whales migrating from Mexico to the Bering Sea had so exhausted their fat reserves that their bodies were misshapen as they passed by last spring.
8. Northwest coast: Scientists trawling for young salmon found counts extremely low in spring and fall 2005.
9. Northern California: Scientists trawling for young rock- fish found counts very low in 2005.
10. Farallon Islands: Auklets abandoned their nests in unprecedented numbers. Where hundreds of chicks normally are produced, only a handful were in 2005. Lack of food is blamed.
11. Monterey, Calif.: Large number of seabirds found dead on beaches in spring 2005.

The birds in Appleton, Wisconsin are acting normally......

I just voted you way above...hadnt seen this b4. Very interesting.

It coincides with my own research on magnetic and gravity anomolies. I have been too tired to add anything academic here lately, but have some additional info that correlates with the birds behaviour. There have been some articles on cattle that are acting erratically also...running from one side of the paddock to the furthest southern side of the paddock.

Have read quite a lot on ATS already about magnetic reversal etc., so this is confirmation. I would provide the magnetic reversal link but pc illiterate me doesnt know how to link them from ATS to ATS. You probably are aware of this anyway so will conserve my energy

cheers
Nat

Hey Loam, I heard this on the radion this a.m. and wanted to point you to it.

Fewer and fewer birds are migrating from California to Canada. Scientists are worried that this mysterious disappearance of birds may point to a larger problem.

www.npr.org...



[edit on 17-4-2006 by zenlover28]

Excellent find zenlover.

up:

Thank you.

Thanks, zenlover.

Here's another nice find from Vaak.

Mystery shrouds loss of migrant birds