Around 11 p.m., thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling from the sky over this small city about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and terrifying anyone who happened to be outside.
The cause is still being determined, but preliminary lab results from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission revealed "acute physical trauma" in samples of the dead birds, primarily in the breast tissue, with blood clotting and bleeding in the body cavities. There were no indications of disease, although tests were still being done for the presence of toxic chemicals.
Karen Rowe, the bird conservation-program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the prevailing theory was that the birds had been startled by New Year's Eve fireworks and dispersed suddenly, flying low enough to run into chimneys, houses and trees. Pyrotechnics are used to scatter blackbirds for farming purposes, although only during the day, given the birds' poor vision.
Red-winged blackbirds are among North America's most abundant birds, with between 100 million and 200 million nationwide, in all 50 states, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y.
Beebe (pronounced BEE-be) is a congregating spot for blackbirds, and one witness told Rowe that he saw the birds roosting earlier in the day, and heard them again at night soon after the fireworks started.
"It was the right mix of things happening in a perfect time sequence," Rowe said.
The most recent count indicated up to 5,000 birds fell on the city. Sixty-five samples were sent to labs, one of which is at the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the other in Madison, Wis.
Bad weather was to blame for earlier bird kills in Arkansas.
In 2001, lightning killed dozens of mallards at Hot Springs, and a flock of dead pelicans was found in the woods about 10 years ago, Rowe said. Lab tests showed that they, too, had been hit by lighting.
In 1973, hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, on the day before hunting season. Some of the birds were caught in a violent storm's updrafts and became encased in ice before falling from the sky. Some were described as bowling balls with feathers.
Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Livestock and Poultry Commission, said he was not aware of a case as large as the one in Beebe.
City officials contacted an environmental cleanup firm, which by Monday afternoon had picked up nearly all the blackbirds, some of which were bagged and left at the end of driveways by residents.
"It just looked as if it had rained birds," said City Councilmember Tracy Lightfoot, declining to speculate on the reason. "There's lots of theories running around. I have no idea. I just don't have a clue."
State scientists believe one thing to be almost certain: The bird deaths were not related to about 85,000 fish that died a few days earlier in the western part of the state, the biggest fish kill in Arkansas that anyone can remember. The fish were seen by anglers along the Arkansas River last week and reported to the Game and Fish Commission, which spent New Year's Eve measuring and counting dead fish that had spread out for nearly 20 miles.
The victims were almost all drum, and almost all younger ones. That suggests the culprit was disease, said Mark Oliver, chief of fisheries for the commission. He said fish kills were not uncommon, especially during winter when the fish are packed more closely. Still, he said he did not recall one of this size.
Meanwhile, about 500 dead birds were found Monday outside New Roads, La., northwest of Baton Rouge. Those birds were much more varied, with starlings and grackle in addition to blackbirds, and a few samples picked up by James LaCour, a wildlife veterinarian with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, did not show signs of trauma, he said.