Not Another History Podcast
We are Cindy and Katie, and every two weeks we bring you a random theme and offer several of our favorite historical events loosely based on that theme. We are basically just living out our old lady fantasies of rocking on the front porch together, drinking, and gossiping about people who are already dead. Music: The Life of a Divorced Bumblebee by Josef Bel Habib (www.epidemicsound.com). Design: canva.com
Not Another History Podcast
4 Calling Birds
In honor of the holiday season, we are re-releasing our 12 Days of Christmas special! For the next 12 days, we will re-release one episode a day, each one with our own spin on the classic holiday theme, "The 12 Days of Christmas."
Cindy tells the story of the Aflockalypse.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me four calling birds, which reminds me Katie. What do poison calling birds? Which reminds me, katie.
Speaker 2:What do poison, calling birds, heavy drinking and murder all have in common? Those are the four things that were on my christmas list this year. How did you know?
Speaker 1:surprise, katie, you weren't supposed to find out, it's supposed to be a surprise.
Speaker 1:no, what those things all have in common are four calling birds. What? Just to back up for a hot second. Apparently, actually, katie, you already kind of addressed this in our very first 12 Days of Christmas episode, but in the original version of the 12 Days of Christmas, the calling birds were referred to as Collie Birds, and subsequent variations of the song referred to the birds as Canary Birds, collie Birds, colored Birds, curly Birds, corley Birds and then finally Calling Birds, which, of course, as you mentioned in our first episode, was published by Frederick Austin in 1909, along with his new tune, which is the tune that we sing the 12 Days of Christmas to now. The original collie bird was the European blackbird, as collie meant black, as in collie. So, katie, have you ever heard of the Aflacalypse?
Speaker 2:No, what's the Aflacalypse?
Speaker 1:Let me enlighten you.
Speaker 2:Can I be an avocado for the Aflacalypse?
Speaker 1:Of course, katie. Anything for you. Of course, katie. Anything for you. On January 1st 2011, the residents of Beebe, arkansas, woke up to find thousands of dead blackbirds strewn all across the roads. Shortly thereafter, 500 blackbirds rained down from the skies in Louisiana. Katie, was this UFOs? No, was it government?
Speaker 2:testing of energy weapons, solar waves, the end of time. I was going to say it's the end of times. It's the end of times.
Speaker 1:Well, cue the rational and lame scientists coming in and taking away most of the fun conspiracy theories Although I do say most of the fun conspiracy theories. According to these quote bird scientists, not quote they really are bird scientists.
Speaker 2:They have master's degrees.
Speaker 1:What was happening was not that unusual and these events, aptly called die-offs, were not connected. So in the case of the blackbirds in Arkansas, it was initially thought that the deaths were caused by some kind of weather phenomenon, like a microburst or a strong downward draft. But since the die-off took place on New Year's Eve, the death of all of these blackbirds was most likely caused by fireworks. According to scientists at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the blackbirds probably flew low to avoid the turn-of-the-year fireworks and collided with objects. Oh, that's unfortunate. But Katie Graham Madge, who is the conservation spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, believes the birds may have been poisoned. He argues that it was kind of a strange coincidence that the mass deaths involved this particular species of blackbirds, which is the red-winged blackbird, which is considered a quote agricultural pest. Really, yes, I didn't know that. They're beautiful.
Speaker 1:Madge says quote. It is intriguing. Oh, he's British, so he probably goes. It is intriguing that the bird at the epicenter of this particular incident is also the most hated. You see what he said Katie Murder. The birds were murdered.
Speaker 2:Well, were they murdered or were they just a murder, like a group of crows is referred to as a, or ravens is referred to as a murder, murder. So maybe it was misunderstood. It wasn't really murdered, they were just in a group. How about?
Speaker 1:you ask their surviving relatives what they think? Perhaps?
Speaker 2:I also just want to point out that we as Americans, when we realize that someone is British, we automatically give them like a very posh English accent. It's never like the terrible and I know it's not a real one like the terrible dick van dyke one.
Speaker 1:The bird at the epicenter of this particular entity is the most hated governor. I just realized I have not practiced my british accent in a long time. It's like hard. It's harder than it sounds. Yeah, oi, oi, okay. Madge also says that these blackbirds are sometimes targeted with a poison that affects the bird's water repellency. The birds get wet and cold and develop pneumonia and die Martin Fowley, is that an amazing last name?
Speaker 2:He's born to be an ornithologist.
Speaker 1:He is born to work at Bird Life International. He says that the firework explanation is a plausible one, but he says I also heard some reports that some birds were acting drunkenly, which would imply poisoning. Can you imagine, katie? Can we all just imagine a drunk calling bird at 2am? Hey, it's just me. Pick up your phone.
Speaker 2:I miss you, I miss what we were, I miss what we had. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, take me back.
Speaker 1:Stop calling. According to Arkansas officials, preliminary testing showed no sign of disease in the dead birds and that they died of quote acute physical trauma. But according to Madge, he says this could have occurred when they came into contact with buildings or the ground.
Speaker 2:When they fell out of the effing sky Exactly. Remember, kids, it's not the fall that gets you, it's the impact, it's the pavement, it's the pavement.
Speaker 1:So what I think is so noteworthy about this a flockalypse is that even if these are these events events like the one in Louisiana and the one in Arkansas and there's other reports you know across the entire world even if these events aren't connected, they do cause a lot of hysteria.
Speaker 1:And the fact that I think in this case, like the one in Arkansas and the one in Louisiana, because they took place on New Year's right and they occurred back to back, this caused a lot of people to kind of panic and they were trying to connect the dots to figure out what was going on. So they kind of saw that maybe there was some kind of like larger conspiracy at play than just like these natural die-offs. But according to Kristen Schuller, who is a scientist at the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, she says, quote there's nothing apocalyptic or anything that is necessarily out of the ordinary for what we would see in any given week. These die-offs occur among birds, fish and other creatures and can range in size from dozens to thousands. More research is needed to really understand why these die-offs happen. So that is the story of the calling bird a floccalypse. Hey, katie.
Speaker 2:Cindy.
Speaker 1:It's just 2 am and I just thought I'd give you a call. I'll just tell you that I love you. Cindy, it's just 2 am and I just thought I'd give you a call. I'll just tell you that I love you.
Speaker 2:Click. No, I would never do that.
Speaker 1:It's just me, your calling bird friend Calling collect. You have a collect call from your calling bird friend. Do you accept this charge? Yes, thank you.