Incredible footage emerges of birds dropping from the sky in Mexico

A quiet suburb was hit by a feathery explosion when hundreds of birds pelted into the ground. And it’s not the first time it’s happened this week.

The incredible video shows thousands of birds dropping from the sky in Mexico.

Incredible footage of what appears to be hundreds of birds dropping from the sky has caused a serious buzz in Mexico.

The disturbing vision, captured on a home surveillance camera in Cuauhtémoc, in the country’s north, shows a regular street carpet bombed by feathers in a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Locals described the scene as a “massacre”, as speculation about the cause of the sudden freak occurrence began to swirl.

Police were called to the scene but no official conclusion has been reached.

Ecologist with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Dr Richard Broughton suspected it was caused by a raptor or similar predatory bird hunting the flock. However, short clip causing a stir does not reveal much else.

Dr Broughton said a bird of prey could have made the birds evade quickly together as a flock and then lose their bearing, and plotting a collision course with the ground. He said the predatory birds flying higher often force lower ones to crash into the buildings or the ground.

🇲🇽 SHOCKING VIDEO of Hundreds of Birds dying & falling from the Sky in Mexico in the city of Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. The images show migratory birds crashing into the ground. The ‘strange occurrence’ was recorded last Monday at around 5pm. pic.twitter.com/zGfmJELtsz

— Moses Ling (@moseslingcanada) February 13, 2022

“This looks like a raptor like a peregrine or hawk has been chasing a flock, like they do with starlings, and they have crashed as the flock was forced low,” Broughton said via The Guardian.

“You can see that they act like a wave at the beginning, as if they are being flushed from above.”

A local veterinarian suggested to Mexican news outlet El Heraldo de Chihuahua that the incident could have been caused from high levels of pollution in the area.

Senior lecturer in conservation biology at Manchester Metropolitan University agreed the cause was likely from a predatory bird, claiming pollutants were often blamed as a “knee-jerk” reaction.

“For my part and from one video and no toxicology, I’d still say the most probable cause is the flock (manoeuvring) to avoid a predatory raptor and hitting the ground,” he said.

“There always seems to be a knee-jerk response to blame environmental pollutants, but collisions with infrastructure are very common.

“In a tightly packed flock, the birds are following the movements of the bird in front rather than actually interpreting their wider surroundings, so it isn’t unexpected that such events happen occasionally.”

The incredible video shows thousands of birds dropping from the sky in Mexico.

Earlier this week, the BBC reported roughly 200 birds died in “mysterious circumstances” near a village in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Dozens of starlings were strewn across the road.

“There were 50 plus birds on the road and you could hear them all in the hedges, squawking and making noises,” Pembrokeshire Herald editor Tom Sinclair said.

“In the first wave people told me the council collected 10 bin bags, and I was there later on so I think quite a few hundred, if not a 1000 have died.

“I was there at around 11.30pm, they were still falling from the sky. It was as if they were dead before they hit the ground.”

Local animal authorities said the birds may have been disturbed from their evening roost and became disoriented.

“When this happens during night-time, it can cause them to collide with the ground as they become disorientated,” wildlife charity the RSPB said.