sorry eric I cant seem to get the link to work.

I don't know why the link is inoperative. However, the article was short. There was mention of attaching small lights to the guy wires, so the birds can see them at night, and avoid flying into them.

I couldn't read the article either. That's awful though. The lights sound like a good idea at least around the time of migration. Sarah

It sounds illogical to me. If guy wires as such posed a problem, then we would have heard about it long before now. In my area -which is part of a major migratory route- there are many such towers (police, radio, fire departments, etc.) and some are located within well-populated areas -- if there had been the slightest hint of *any* birds dying due to those wires, the news would have been impossible to suppress!

Did you see the bird bodies? or know personally of someone [trustworthy] who did? And even the number sounds dubious... I'm willing to consider it possible that a hurricane or tornado blew a flock of birds around, and that such a thing could have happened at night, but it stretches belief that any wind would conveniently dump all the bodies in one single place! Also, how many birds do we know of that would *choose* to fly at night unless they are over a large body of water? Not saying that birds don't fly at night, but I've never read or heard of any night-flyers that would flock together in the hundreds.

Sorry, the story doesn't smell right to me.

I know it's not the same thing but There was a report on the Pa birdlist just today about something very similar Here it is copy and pasted

PA Birders:

Last weekend (October 7-9) there was a significant bird kill of at least 142 birds at Quehanna in Clearfield County. Several of the birds were sent in to the Penn State Animal Diagnostic (Veterinary) Lab for analysis. Those results are back (at least interim results) and we feel that it is appropriate to publicly announce the results. Some may be concerned about the cause of this kill (news of which is now being spread by rumor), so we are trying to clear the air before it gets murky.

The interim diagnosis is that the birds died of trauma (basically, they collided with hard objects). To quote, in part, from the interim diagnostic report: There was fresh bruising evident in the subcutaneous tissues of thorax, neck, & skull of specimens. Some had hemorrhage in trachea, lung(s). A few had an indented area in the skull. The birds had abundant body fat, and otherwise were in good general body condition. The gizzards were empty. Preliminary histopathology results show no significant lesions in the major organs. The bacterial cultures that have been completed are negative.

More tests will be made, but all indications are that this fairly large kill was due to collisions with buildings and perhaps wires and other objects in a compound deep in the woods of North-central PA.

I inspected > 100 of these birds (but not the ones sent in to the Lab) and can give you a partial list of species that died in this event:

Red-eyed Vireo 1
Gray-cheeked Thrush 2
Northern Parula 1
Magnolia Warbler 4
Cape May Warbler 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler 4
Blackburnian Warbler 2
Bay-breasted Warbler 2
Blackpoll Warbler 106
American Redstart 2
Ovenbird 2
Common Yellowthroat 1
Unknown (well-decayed) Warbler ~8
Scarlet Tanager 1
(plus additional birds we didn't see)

Most specimens were very wet with matted plumage, etc., and some quite deteriorated.

The weather conditions of this event are "classic" for a fall bird collision scenario: a decreasingly low cloud horizon accompanying an advancing low front (and ground fog) that followed clear skies associated with a high front. The birds probably left their day roosts with stars over their heads and encountered more clouds and then dense cover and fog toward dawn as they flew south into a rainstorm that covered the state over the first part of the weekend.

This was a fairly major collision event at a remote location with a fairly "low profile." No tall buildings, some power and telephone lines, and only a fairly small tower at site. An almost residential profile in a forested area. None of the buildings were more than 2 stories tall. Lights at the facility may have attracted the birds into the compound in an otherwise unlit forested region and brought them into collision hazards that they otherwise would not encounter.

I suggest that there may have been other (unobserved) collision events in Pennsylvania this week at sites not monitored by people. The low cloud ceiling today may continue conditions for avian mortality on human structures. (People at this site collected the birds and made them available to PGC for testing and identification.)

As many of you are aware, this bird list is a set of southbound, long-distance, Neotropical migrant songbirds, mostly of boreal origins. The Blackpoll Warblers (the majority of specimens) were bound for South America via the United States (with a probabe ultimate origin somewhere in the conifer forests of Canada) in the longest migration of any songbird in the world, including the longest transoceanic flight of any songbird (over the Atlantic from NE USA to NW South America). Unfortunately, the trips of these birds ended here in PA.
Dan Brauning and I would like to thank the staff at the PGC North Central Regional Office and the Columbia County Gamelands crew for providing assistance to this effort.

Douglas A. Gross
PGC Wildlife Biologist - Endangered Birds Specialist
144 Winters Road, Orangeville, PA 17859
570-458-4109
dogross@state.pa.us

I don't know the weather conditions at the time when the birds presumably flew into the broadcast tower. I suspect that the incident was noticed and investigated several hours after the actual impacts occurred. The investigation was done by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources-I did not personally see the dead birds.

I came across the report on the Excite news site. It was credited to AP News. I heard nothing in the local news about this incident. This is not the first time I have run across evidence of news being managed, or suppressed. I am sure that it happens all the time. This is a huge subject.

Sarah- thanks for the info. It is absolutely fascinating, especially that most of the surrounding structures were 2 stories or less -- that would be the average height or shorter than most full-frown trees! I find the daytime fog/low front quite believable, although the total quantity as well as number of species are startling to have occurred at one site. I have to wonder if this could be nature's way of eliminating those birds with inadequate navigational ability.

Well Eric and Meldy, Here is another post from the list just today Sarah

Dear PA Birders:

Last Friday, I posted news of a bird collision event that occurred last weekend (October 7-9) in Clearfield Co. The conditions were typical of such bird collision events. I intend to publish the results of this event, including the weather and local conditions, in a bird publication.

I strongly suspect that there were other collision events in the state. It would be good to get information about these incidents, even if all the details are not known. With the increased construction of various towers and other devises in the state, it is good to publish more of what we know about such incidents. There are bird collision events documented, but usually in the "gray literature" or hidden away in posts on websites. This info gets lost, buried, or overlooked easily.

I would appreciate any news of other bird collision events last weekend during that rainstorm that enveloped most of the state in clouds during bird migration. I will try to include it in an article. Please send me information at the address listed below.

Yours in Bird Conservation,

Douglas A. Gross
PGC Wildlife Biologist - Endangered Birds Specialist
144 Winters Road, Orangeville, PA 17859
570-458-4109
dogross@state.pa.us

--

In my limited birding experience, I've never seen this kind of carnage before except for pesticide bird kills.

The odds of any bird hitting cables and pylons must be pretty low; therefore the number of birds in the migration flyway must be enormous. Just my guess. What say you, Sarah?

Eric, is this the article you tried to link?
_____

TV Tower Wires Kill 400 Birds in One Night

The Associated Press
Thursday, October 6, 2005; 8:03 AM

MADISON, Wis. -- As many as 400 songbirds were killed in one night after they flew into wires holding up a television tower.

The deaths may spur the creation of a group to study the dangers communication towers pose to migrating birds, said specialists with the Department of Natural Resources.

"It's an issue that has been with us for decades," DNR avian ecologist Sumner Matteson said. "But we really haven't done anything about it."

The birds were killed the night of Sept. 13-14 at the WMTV tower.

"There were birds all over the place," said Steven Ugoretz, a DNR environmental specialist who works on tower-related issues.

Searchers found 172 birds around the base of the 1,100-foot tower. Crows, cats and other scavengers took another 200 or more, and Ugoretz estimates more birds likely died because no one searched a heavily wooded area just north of the tower.

A similar kill occurred the night of Sept. 7-8, Ugoretz said.

Such kills are not unusual during spring and fall migrations, though Ugoretz and Matteson said they are an increasing concern because of multiple threats to the world's songbirds.

Most of the dead birds Sept. 14 were warblers. Other birds included red-eyed vireos, American redstarts, ovenbirds, common yellowthroats and a rose-breasted grosbeak.

Matteson and Ugoretz said they want to form a task force of bird experts and communications industry representatives to study the issue. Possible solutions include using lights to illuminate wires and changing the blinking frequency of red warning lights, Matteson said.

A telephone message left for WMTV's general manager was not immediately returned Wednesday.

___

Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.wisconsinstatejournal.co
_____

How sad that they were aware of the problem but didn't do anything about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to posted text