One of many comments of seeing the strange lights in the sky.
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"I would not usually comment on something like this, but yesterday I saw a bright orange glow in the sky, then it seemed to get higher only for it to vanish! I am a total non believer in UFOs but could not explain this"
- Joey, London, 11/3/2010 16:14
On Sunday night, over a quiet Somerset house, scores of swooping starlings tumbled out of the sky and fell, dead, into a single front garden.
Covering an area 12ft across, more than 100 birds carpeted the garden, each with blood oozing from its beak and curled up claws.
Most had died, although some flapped lamely, clearly in pain until the RSPCA put them out of their misery.
An RSPCA animal welfare officer was called in by Julie Knight to collect the dozens of dead birds from her garden in Coxley, Somerset
Householder Julie Knight, 53, returned to her home in the quiet village of Coxley at 4.15pm to find the macabre scene, which has mystified experts.
An RSPCA expert said the cause of the deaths was 'a mystery'.
Julie, a nurse, said: 'It was like something out of an horror film - like Hitchcock's The Birds - it was absolutely terrifying.
'The sky was raining starlings. One of my neighbours saw them. They seemed to just fall out of the sky. About 70 were dead straight away.
'The only way to describe what they looked like is that they seemed to have had a fright and were petrified.
'There must have been over 100 birds in total. I've been a country girl all my life and I've never seen anything like it.'
Some of the bodies fell into the boughs of a tree, where a number of distressed surviving birds perched. Just six survived.
'My only thoughts are that the birds, who are greedy in nature, had been eating crops sprayed with weedkiller and were poisoned - but it's all very weird.'
Lloyd Scott, from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: 'This is one of the oddest things I've ever heard about.
'We've certainly never come across anything similar.'
Even the animal experts are unsure why they died.
'Starlings have natural habits and behaviour, when flying around in a murmuration they relate each movement to the seven birds closest to them.
'They are hardwired into doing this and on instinct they stay away from each other.'
Mrs Knight insisted they had simply fallen out of the sky.
Post mortems on the starlings carried out today proved inconclusive.
They were all found to have physical injuries - with most suffering either broken wings or a shattered beak - but no underlying health problems or toxins which could explain their sudden deaths.
RSPCA spokesman Helen Cohen said the cause of the incident was 'still a mystery'.
She said: 'We were informed that a lady had reported many dead or dying starlings on her property. This is obviously an extremely unusual occurrence.
'Tests were carried out on some of the birds and they were found to have physical injuries but we could find no evidence of any health issues which could explain what had happened.
'We know they did not strike power cables because they would have fallen directly beneath and there are none nearby.
Flocks of hundreds or even thousands of starlings often fly togther, seemingly as one, with each bird closely watching seven others to determine the direction of the 'murmuration' (file photo)
'The only possible explanation we can think of is that something has caused the flock to suddenly change their direction of flight and caused them to hit the ground.
'It could have been that a bird of prey could have scared them into doing this, but it is still a mystery really.'
Mrs Knight added: 'I'm worried about what could have killed them because I have a young grandson and two cats that are often in my garden.
--Please check out my books at www.amazon.com, Dragons of Asgard & UFO Sightings of 2006-2009, by Scott C. Waring
