Thousands of birds drop out of the sky in England

Thousands of birds drop out of the sky in England







Thousands of common garden birds have fallen from the sky into the sea off the English coast.

• 
  Fishermen report birds falling from the sky
  
• 
  Birds are exhausted, disoriented, thousands drown
  
• 
  "Just saw dead songbirds in the water: it was a harrowing sight"
  

EXHAUSTED and disoriented garden birds are dropping from the sky into the sea off England's south coast.





Fishermen have reported seeing hundreds of common migratory birds plunging to the deaths in the past week.
“While
fishing about 10 miles south of Portsmouth, we witnessed thousands of
garden birds disorientated, land on the sea and most drowning,” one boat
skipper told Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
(RSPB).
“Species included goldcrests, robins, thrushes and
blackbirds. The sky was thick with garden birds. I estimate I saw 500
birds die and that was just in our 300-yard sphere.
“On the way home we just saw dead songbirds in the water: it was a harrowing sight.”
RSPB
conservation director Martin Harper said the scale of the deaths was
shocking and could affect the survival of the bird species.





























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Experts believe the birds fell victim to a combination of fog and
heavy winds as they travelled across the north sea from Scandinavia.
“We
think that these birds left Scandinavia in good weather conditions,
which is what birds are evolved to do, and they were drifting along the
North Sea where they encountered the foggy conditions that we had a few
weeks ago,” Graham Madge of the RSPB told Radio 4's Material World
programme.
“We started receiving reports from fishermen along the
south coast ... saying that there boat was surrounded by hundreds of
birds many of which were just so tired and disorientated that they
dropped into the sea.
“This is particularly unusual; it's birds
like thrushes, robins and a whole variety of other species that can be
very good long distance migrants.”

Source:-
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/thousands-of-birds-to-drop-out-of-the-sky-in-england/story-fn32891l-1226516345838