The starlings that fell dead on A2 on Thursday afternoon, made a navigational error. Scientist Erwin Kompanje concludes this in a newspaper Fidelity† “They can be wrong. That happens in nature.”
In order to get the dead birds off the road, Rijkswaterstaat had to close three lanes. As a result, motorists were delayed by more than three quarters of an hour.
Because the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) had to investigate whether the birds were infected with bird flu, it took hours before the road was reopened. But, says Kompanje, starlings cannot become infected with this disease. “Bird flu occurs in waterfowl, not in starlings,” he tells the newspaper.
Mistake
According to Kompanje, the birds became disoriented, possibly because they were startled by something. “A flock of birds that dies en masse just happens every now and then and it happens all over the world.”
“They can make mistakes,” says Kompanje. “That happens in nature. I recently saw a cormorant that apparently mistook the wet road for water. He tried to land but flipped several times. That too is an error of judgment.”