Birds falling out of the sky

Some of the dead birds found by biologists from New Mexico State University. Photograph: Allison Salas/New Mexico State University. Thousands of migrating birds have inexplicably died in south-western US in what ornithologists have described as a national tragedy. Flycatchers, swallows and warblers are among the species “falling out of the sky” as part of a mass die-off across New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and farther north into Nebraska, with growing concerns there could be hundreds of thousands dead already, said Martha Desmond, a professor in the biology department at New Mexico State University (NMSU). Many carcasses have little remaining fat reserves or muscle mass, with some appearing to have nose-dived into the ground mid-flight.