For some reason, whenever I moved to the state that I live in now, I became fascinated with birds.

I’m not the crazy bird guy or anything and I wouldn’t even call it a hobby for me or anything, but I do enjoy feeding the birds that come to my yard and watching them. I can even tell that there are some birds that come by frequently.

For example, there is a pair of cardinals that comes to my house and their behavior is very telling. One of them will land on my roof and do his high-pitched chirp early in the morning. He will also go to the feeder that I have mounted onto the window and will go back and forth pecking at the window.

During certain times of the year, we have starlings that come around in mass numbers and it’s really neat to watch their murmurations. These are when they fly around in one big movement.

Recently, I came across this video of a large group of birds just mysteriously falling from the sky in Mexico. It really makes no sense. It’s not like they were all trying to land or anything. It was really strange. Several of them died on the spot as well.

According to El Heraldo de Chihuahua,

A local vet suggested toxic fumes from a nearby heater could’ve been the culprit, but also thought it might have been an electrical arc from a power line.

Another possibility is just an error by the birds. Often times, flocks will fly in a murmuration, changing direction together as if in a choreographed dance. The birds might have miscalculated where the ground was, or had to quickly turn to escape a predator, causing them all to come crashing down.

Commenters on the video had theories too. One person wrote, “Strong possibility that the deaths were caused by the inability of the birds further back in the swarm to see the ground approaching. Basically a multi car pile up but birds instead of cars,” while another said, “Microbursts of air can knock jumbo jets out of the air on approach to a runway. Why not a flock of birds.” A third joked, “Maybe there was some bread on the street and they were all racing to get it.”

The investigation is ongoing.

Whatever the cause, it sure is strange. It’s not everyday that you see dozens of birds all dying at once.