Sorry, Im aware this is a bit of a “chestnut” but:
I know you see the odd dead bird here and there but considering how many of them there are, shouldnt the old near-death ones be falling out of the sky every few minutes?
Why isn’t the ground littered with them?
Where do they go to die?
Birds don’t die. They just fade away.
That’s why we have vultures and bacteria.
The thing is, there just isn’t very much too a bird. They’re mostly just a big wad of feathers attached to a tiny bit of flesh and bone. Most songbirds only weigh a few ounces. The carcasses are either scarfed up quickly by scavenging mammals (dogs, cats, squirrels or rats in cities), or if not ants or maggots do away with them in a matter of a day or two.
And besides that, they probably don’t die of old age much - they fall prey to predators, die on migration, or die during spells of bad weather when they can’t feed.
Also I think they kind of crawl up in a hole when they are sick and die in that hole - unlikely you will see them there
Related thread and a Cecil answer that pretty much drag this question off into the woods and devour it.
Why don’t we see birds die of natural causes?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=26430
Cecil Answer
Where are all the dead pigeons?
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_083.html
Have you looked in your attic or under your bed recently?
Actually, I have several in my freezer. And they ain’t chickens.
Thanks but Im not convinced this would account for all of them.
The instinct of the bird is to fly - that is what it was built for.
Therefore many (most?) of them may go for that one final flight in search of food. The energy involved in flying may induce their heart to give out. So you would expect to find a vast number of birds dying whilst in flight - because thats what they do! And, more importantly, thats what they do when they need food.
Dying Birds Rain on Eola
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-nws-birds081801.story?coll=orl%2
From Quisp’s link:
"Nearly 100 birds began dropping from trees or even falling in mid-flight about 6 p.m. in the popular park on the east side of downtown. Most were grackles and pigeons, but at least one duck was found dead. Egrets and Lake Eola’s famous black swans did not appear affected.
Park rangers made announcements warning hundreds of people gathered for the evening’s MoviEola outdoor film feature, Chicken Run, not to touch the birds. Workers with gloves were busy putting them into bags and trash bins, and they planned to put the carcasses on ice to preserve them for necropsies."
What an odd juxtaposition of real life and feature film! Yikes!
Xanakis… you’re a little off with what birds would do when near the end. When an animal is starving or sick, it will expend as little energy as possible and go for the easiest food source it can get. A starving, sickly sparrow will root around the grass for a grub or seed rather than taking “one last flight” and trying to out-maneuver a dragonfly. Flying and activley hunting would be the last thing on the mind of a sick bird if at all avoidable. I know when I have the flu, I don’t feel like treking through the bush looking for game. Also I don’t think it’s very common for a bird to have high cholesteral or blocked aretries… with the amount of activity those things do they don’t have the same kind of couch-potato health problems we humans do. The instinct to fly bit? well, it’s like saying that a human’s instinct is to walk, therefore dying people would feel like getting out of bed and should mostly be found falling over dead on the sidewalk or jogging path. The links above give good descriptions of what sick birds are likely to do and why.
This is absolutely untrue, based on my personal observations as a professional ornithologist. Sick or dying birds will usually simply huddle on a perch with their feathers fluffed until they keel over.
Do you have any evidence for this, or did you just make it up?
Ill come clean, I just made it up, I have no evidence as such.
It just seems to me that a hungry bird will look for food. Looking for food, when you are a bird, involves flying. Flying, when you are an old bird, will increase your chances of dying.
Therefore we should expect to see more birds dying when flying. Since we dont, there must be something going on, or something…
Flying takes a lot of energy. I have often seen sick or dying birds that are too weak to fly - they are simply not strong enough. They become too weak to fly long before they actually die.
But wouldnt they make that last effort in search of food?
Maybe they would if they could but they can’t.
oh ok
but I bet they could if they really wanted to …mumble…mumble
If birds can fly
before they die?
Why can’t I?
“nature is red in tooth and claw”
The very sick ones don’t last long…or at least they don’t try to fly around too much.
of course, astro gave the correct links…