MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Ashley Meeks – “LAS CRUCES – The Mesilla Valley Audubon Society counts birds every year – but it usually focuses on birds of the living variety.

This year, during the 36th annual Christmas Bird Count, participants found something quite different: piles of dead crows, possibly hundreds of them, at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, says participant Ken Stinnett, who’s been doing bird counts since 1969.

‘I discovered, in the river and along the west side of the river quite a few dead birds,’ he said Tuesday. ‘Ninety-nine percent of them, of course, were American crows. I saw one Chihuahuan raven and later I saw one Brewer’s blackbird had been affected.’

As part of the survey, participants are assigned to various portions of a 15-mile circle that includes the river, La Cueva near the Organ Mountains, parts of U.S. 70 in the north and portions of the South Valley.

While some of the birds were found dead at the water’s edge, others, ‘it was obvious they died when they were perched in the trees, and just fell over dead,’ said Stinnett. The only bodies of water that appeared to be affected were between the Mesilla Dam and the Santo Tomas Bridge, downstream from Las Cruces, Stinnett said.

‘There were other areas of water that had ducks, geese, sandpipers and killdeer that were not affected,’ Stinnett said. ‘There were crows drinking water there and flying off like crows do.’

Park rangers were notified and officials from the USDA picked up the carcasses to perform necropsies, said Stinnett, who said the sight was quite disconcerting.” Read more.