My personal guess as to the falling birds incident would be tornado
activity; there was at least one tornado within the state around the same
time, and were probably some others. The BBC report suggested perhaps a
hailstorm. I think tornado activity is the usual explanation that's
posited when "rains of fish" or the like occur. Apparently they're doing
a selective necropsy; would be interesting to see the results.

Kelsey Byers (Wallingford, Seattle, WA)
Department of Biology
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kjbyers at uw.edu
(978)460-3581
KB1ONA