CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — Editor's note: The bird pictured above is not one involved in the following story.
Video taking the internet by storm appears to show a flock of yellow-headed blackbirds drop dead and crash to the ground in Mexico.
The news was originally reported by local newspaper El Heraldo de Chihuahua.
According to the newspaper, police responded the morning of Feb. 7 after people reported hundreds of dead birds were scattered along public roads.
El Heraldo de Chihuahua says police found about 100 migratory yellow-headed thrush birds dead on the ground.
The newspaper says a veterinarian was called and suggested the birds could have died "as a result of inhaling toxic smoke." Another possible reason the vet gave is if the birds were near power lines, an overload could have affected them, El Heraldo de Chihuahua said.
What exactly happened to the birds couldn't be determined, the newspaper said.
Security footage shared widely online shows the flock of birds descending onto houses in what almost looked like a cloud of black smoke. Most of the birds are able to fly away, but others remained on the ground.
The Guardian reports it spoke to Dr. Richard Broughton, an ecologist with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who said he was "99% sure" the birds' deaths were caused by a predatory bird that "flushed" the flock from above.
“This looks like a raptor-like a peregrine or hawk has been chasing a flock, like they do with murmuration starlings, and they have crashed as the flock was forced low,” he said to The Guardian. “You can see that they act like a wave at the beginning, as if they are being flushed from above.”
