Yesterday morning, near 20 dead red billed Acacia birds were lying on the ground in front of a street store in Xianning City.
Whether it was a malicious poisoning, or a collective illness, or a real sacrifice for love? There was a lot of discussion among the people nearby. After hearing the news, the reporter rushed to the scene to interview, and contacted the staff of Xianning wildlife protection station and Hubei wildlife epidemic focus and disease monitoring center to find out the truth.
Scene: 20 red billed birds died
At about 10 a.m. yesterday, the reporter came to Xianning City Yinquan Avenue next to a neighborhood store. The sanitation workers had cleaned the scene, and the dead birds were put into the garbage can not far away.
Reporters found that a total of 18. Careful observation showed that the birds were about 10 cm long, with brilliant plumage, grayish green back, red and grayish yellow wings, pointed red mouth, yellowish white abdomen and yellow lower neck.
Then, under the guidance of the public, the reporter found two birds nearby, and a total of 20 birds died.
Ms. Lu runs a supermarket nearby. At about 7:30 yesterday morning, when she opened the door, she found several birds lying on the floor. When she came near, she found that they were all dead. Another look, around the shop door, there are many dead birds, a dozen in total.
Ms. Lu can't say the name of the bird, and the neighbors don't know. She was wondering when she saw another bird flying from the street tree, directly hitting the glass curtain wall on the second floor, falling to the ground and motioning for a few times. It seems that the bird was killed by hitting the wall. 'ms. Lu speculated.
The owner of the store next door said that he had seen birds die occasionally before, but not so many, just one or two. Why do they die?
Doubt: food poisoning or disease
The news that so many birds died at one time spread like wildfire. Many citizens came to see the news. Some people are still worried. "Is it food poisoning? Or is it avian influenza?" some people doubt that these birds may have eaten some poisonous food nearby by mistake, or they may have avian influenza. They just flew here and were seriously ill and could not fly.
Some people also analyzed that the birds may have lost their sense of direction and hit the wall due to the disturbance of the earth's magnetic field during their flight. Some people think that the birds may have been frightened and bumped into the wall in a hurry.
After a young man saw it, he said half jokingly: "although the bird is not big, it looks very beautiful. It's not for love, is it?"
The reporter saw at the scene that the second floor of the street front store in the community is full of green glass curtain walls, on which you can clearly see the shaking shadow of the street trees on the opposite side. Some of these dead birds have blood on their mouths, some have broken feathers, and some have lost their hair on their heads.
Truth: hit by glass curtain wall
In order to find out the truth, the reporter of Chutian Metropolis Daily contacted Xianning wildlife protection station immediately. Liao Weijun, deputy director of the station, immediately came with the staff and disinfected the site first.
Liao Weijun said after seeing it, the dead bird is called Acacia Hongzui, which is a key protected animal at the provincial level. It is mainly distributed in the South and is rare in Xianning.
After inspection, the birds died under the glass curtain wall, with scars on their bodies. It is preliminarily inferred that they were killed by hitting the glass. As for the specific cause of death, it needs further identification by experts from the provincial forestry department.
Yesterday afternoon, the staff of the wild animal monitoring center in Xianning, Hubei Province, went to the epidemic Center for careful inspection. Li Yong, deputy director of the center, said that according to the preliminary judgment, the birds were killed due to mechanical injury, which is generally said to be caused by collision. In addition, the secretions of the mouth, eyes and anus of the dead birds were normal, so the possibility of death from the disease (avian influenza) was preliminarily ruled out.
According to Li Yong's analysis, in autumn and winter, there is a relative lack of food in the mountains and forests. Acacia birds often migrate to cities in a small area to seek food. However, the shadow of trees on the glass curtain walls of some buildings in cities easily makes them have the illusion, which interferes with their judgment of flight direction and leads to direct collision and death.
Li Yong said that with the rapid development of cities, there are more and more phenomena of light pollution. When birds migrate, they are injured and killed by hitting glass curtain walls. This is also a topic that needs common attention in current urban construction.