Hundreds of yellow-headed blackbirds fall from sky in Mexico. Want to know why?

In a viral video, hundreds of yellow-headed blackbirds can be seen appearing to fall from the sky.  

Some of the birds couldn’t survive the fall and died. The mysterious incident has happened in the northern Mexican city of Cuauhtémoc.  

The cause of the incident is still unclear. But experts say that a predatory bird making efforts to make the kill may be the reason.   

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The video is actually the footage from a security camera.  

In it, a flock of migratory birds descended on to the houses like a cloud of black smoke. Some birds managed to fly off but others couldn’t make it and perished. In subsequent footage, carcasses of the distinctive black and yellow birds can be witnessed scattered on streets of the city.  

According to local reports, the incident occurred on the morning of February 7. These birds usually breed farther north in the US and Canada. They migrate to south in Mexico for the winter.  

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Dr Richard Broughton, ecologist, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said that although a raptor cannot be seen in the footage, it must have been caused by a predatory bird only.   

“This looks like a raptor like a peregrine or hawk has been chasing a flock, like they do with murmurating starlings, and they have crashed as the flock was forced low. You can see that they act like a wave at the beginning, as if they are being flushed from above,” Broughton said.   

(With inputs from agencies)