Strange bird, fish and animal deaths reported around the world

There have been a number of reports in the past few days, about bird and fish deaths.  First came word from Arkansas that 5000 red wing blackbirds had suddenly fallen to earth, dead.  Initial reports from the autopsies diagnosed "trauma" as the cause, with a possibility that fireworks at New Year or storms might have caused the deaths.

This was swiftly followed with reports from Louisiana and Kentucky of similar bird deaths in smaller numbers on subsequent days, and then others from Italy and Sweden.

Although these things have been reported sporadically by the media in the UK, I haven't seen much sign that anyone is gathering together or linking the strange occurrences, although there are a large number of bloggers blaming the internet for any connections being postulated.

Following this, 100,000 drum fish are reported dead in Arkansas, not far from the original bird fall.  The odd thing is that nearly all the fish involved are of one type... if this were poison or some environmental disease, you'd expect that different populations might be in the same area and also affected.  Now millions of fish are reported dead in Chesapeake Bay and in New Zealand.  So... I am going to gather links on this page for all those I can find, dating from end of December 2010 to date.

One theory being put forward for the bird deaths is the possibility that there are changes in the earth's magnetism which have affected birds' sense of which way is up.  Another possibility is that the deaths have occurred along geological fault lines and are associated with a possible earthquake or volcanic activity.

Just like the apocalyptic reporting of swine flu in the UK, it is hard to know what is normal and expected every year, and what is out of the ordinary... once you hear about one of these events, you are naturally alert to others, and the journalists must be the same.  It is possible these things are happening all the time and we are simply not aware of them because they aren't well reported.

Birds
Beebe, Arkansas: 5000 red-winged blackbirds, December 31/January 1, 2011
Baton Rouge, Louisiana:  500 birds, January 3, 2011
Western Kentucky: 1000? birds, end December, 2010
Falkoping, Sweden: 100 Jackdaws, January 5, 2011
Italy: turtle doves, unknown number, January 5, 2011
Texas, US: blackbirds 100+, January 4, 2011

Fish
Ozark, Arkansas: 100,000 drum fish, December 30
Chesapeake Bay: 2,000,000 fih, January 2/3, 2011
Coramandel Beach, New Zealand: 1000s of snapper fish, January 4, 2011
Paranagua, Brazil, 100 tons of fish, January 3, 2011

Crustacea
Thanet, Kent: 40,000 crabs, End December/Beginning January 2011 (probably killed by the cold weather, third year there has been a big die off).

Interesting blogs on the Subject

Greg Laden's blog

Edited January 9, 2011 to add: This article suggests weapons testing may be responsible for the bird deaths.  I'm not sure I agree - seems unlikely that weapons have been tested simultaneously around the world.