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A resident notified the agency Tuesday afternoon after he spotted dozens of dead birds along Highway 70 north in Lebanon a few days ago.
"It's kind of a strange, odd thing. It plays into some of the things that have been happening in other places," said Lt. Jim Hooper of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
TWRA officials found 120 dead blackbirds in the Spring Creek area when they investigated the situation on Wednesday.
"We searched the adjoining fields and everywhere else, and there are no other birds except in this one very localized area," said Hooper. "The birds have definitely been dead 5 or 6 days."
Over the past week, several hundred different black birds have turned up dead in at least four other states. But the question of exactly how these birds turned up dead in Lebanon could remain a mystery.
"The fact they have been dead that long, we're not going to be able to really be able to do any toxicology for finding out cause of death or possibly chemicals like that because they have been dead so long," said Hooper.
Could Tennessee's dead birds be connected to ones in other states?
"No one knows because we've not heard anything out of the other states as to the cause of the death of some of those birds. Without being able to do toxicology on these, we really don't know what caused these birds to die," said Hooper.
If the public sees a large number of dead birds, like 30 to 50, call the TWRA at 615-781-6622 as soon as possible. The quicker they are notified, the earlier they can check and test the birds to learn why they are dying.
State agriculture officials said there are no reports of other dead birds in the state.
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