I am gobsmacked at this...............so sad...

Hi everyone,

I had no idea this had happened it is a real shock.I hope we hear what caused this soon.

Littleowl

Just been reading about this, its quite upsetting.

The birds are taken to a laboratory for full testing, and we should have some answers either next week or the week after. I agree with Blackbird that predator avoidance would have resulted in the flock splitting up rather than crash to the ground in such a confined space, especially considering the numbers involved. There is a lot of speculation going on, and I think it is best to wait until the results of the full tests are made public.

Trochilus said:

The birds are taken to a laboratory for full testing, and we should have some answers either next week or the week after. I agree with Blackbird that predator avoidance would have resulted in the flock splitting up rather than crash to the ground in such a confined space, especially considering the numbers involved. There is a lot of speculation going on, and I think it is best to wait until the results of the full tests are made public.

Thank you, please keep us updated

Please do as there has been a lot of debate about this story at the moment.

Regards

Kathy and Dave

Yes, thank you Trochilus, will be interesting to know the outcome.

Thanks Trochilus. Hope the lab's conclusions, are going to be of assistance in preventing this happening again.

Trochilus said:

The birds are taken to a laboratory for full testing

Does that happen a lot?  I had no idea there were bird labs.  It's like bird CSI - someone should make a TV programme.

I hope the lab finds out the answer.  This is such a sad story.

BB

There are no specific 'bird labs', but there are veterinary and other biological labs that have wildlife vets on staff, and which can carry out a full post mortem on a dead bird (or squirrel or deer or any other animal - the Institute of Zoology in London did a pm on a whale not long ago!). There is a lot of specific research and routine monitoring of toxins and diseases going on, both in domestic animals to ensure food safety and human health, and in wildlife. The pm usually looks at anything obvious, and in addition, will test specifically for disease, poisoning etc, as relevant to a particular investigation. In this case, I would guess that the full range of physical injuries will be catalogued, and samples taken for analysis from all tissues that are known to accumulate poisons or toxins, or harbour a disease agent. Depending on these findings, the vets will then determine a cause of death, and depending on the outcome, will follow it up themselves or pass the case on as appropriate. The tests can take a number of days to run, which is why I said that it is likely to be a week or two before anything definite is known.