© Greg Graham Dead robins found under a tree near Ricklin Drive in Leola several days after a violent storm on July 27 apparently spawned a microburst that killed the roosting birds.
The mystery of the hundreds of dead birds found in eastern Lancaster County the night after a
violent storm on July 27 has been solved.
A deadly downward rush of air, known as a microburst, uprooted roosting songbirds from trees in the Leola, Gordonville and Bird-in-Hand areas and slammed them around.
"It appears they were literally blown into the tree branches, the ground - even into each other," says Greg Graham, the Pennsylvania Game Commission's wildlife conservation officer for northeastern Lancaster County.
"It doesn't happen often."
The unusual microburst conclusion was reached after the Game Commission sent the refrigerated carcasses of three robins and two house finches to the diagnostic section of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Lab in Athens, Georgia.
The birds were among about 150 collected by Graham on July 28 from four locations within 150 yards from each other in the Magnolia Drive and Ricklin Drive areas near Leola. Most were robins with a few wrens, sparrows and grackles mixed in.
Some birds survived the event but later died.
Comment: SOTT wonders what will happen when macro-bursts of this type begin happening?