CNN 2011-01-08

PHILLIPS: A minivan does some major damage in a smash and grab robbery that's caught on tape. Vancouver, Washington tops our look at Cross Country this morning. Police reviewing the surveillance tape of a local bowling 1 alley 2 hit by a pair of robbers who used a minivan to heist an automated 3 teller 4 machine out of the lobby. The owner says the damages to his business, far more than the cash that was taken from that ATM.

Firefighters in New Jersey 5 got an early start to their workday, about 1:30 this morning. Condominium complex under construction went up in flames. No injuries reported.

Commuter 6 traffic this morning in southern California has improved immensely since yesterday. Sunday's rain and snow helped close Interstate 5 and other roadways, leaving some motorists to spend hours, if not the night, freezing in their vehicles. As the weather improved, roads were finally reopened.

Well, we can't stop talking about the great dead bird caper 7 of 2011. The mystery thickens. Several hundred dead red-winged black birds, starlings, sparrows, and grackles have now turned up in Louisiana near Baton 8 Rouge 9. It's not clear what killed them just yet.

So far, no one will say this bird kill is related or linked to one just 360 miles north of Beebe, Arkansas. But the similarities are right there. Up to 5,000 of the same types of birds pretty much fell out of the sky over the weekend in Beebe. It's not clear just yet what killed them, either. Early reports say that massive trauma 10, not disease. But people in the town aren't buying some of the theories. Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kelly Mayo still can't imagine what caused this bird to fall out of the sky and nosedive into his backyard.

KELLY MAYO, BEEBE, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: We haven't touched them. That's the exact way he's been since the 1st.

LAVANDERA (on camera): You can see what looks like maybe like a little bloodstain on one of these brown leaves.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Arkansas livestock 11 officials say some birds showed signs of massive trauma, but no evidence they were poisoned. But what caused the trauma? Some officials suggest it was New Year's fireworks or lightning from a storm. Residents here aren't buying those theories.

MAYO: Fireworks? I can't imagine fireworks would strike, you know, 4,000, 5,000 birds and drop them in a one or two-square mile area. It just doesn't sound feasible to me. LAVANDERA (voice-over): Beebe, Arkansas has developed a love/hate relationship with these black birds. Just ask Charles Moore, who lives right next to a wooded area where tens of thousands of the birds live.

CHARLES MOORE, BEEBE, ARKANSAS RESIDENT: To go out and do a simple thing to get a paper, sometimes we'll take an umbrella with us. The sky is just black with them. Then, there's going to be a lot of droppings.

LAVANDERA (on camera): And you've just got a target on your head, right?

MOORE: Oh, yes. Exactly.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): We walked through the wooded area behind Moore's home. Dead birds are still everywhere. And Moore says the ones still alive are acting 12 strange. Some even struggling to fly.

LAVANDERA (on camera): I think I see one over here.

MOORE: Is he alive?

LAVANDERA: It's a bird that probably should have flown away.

MOORE: Yes. I can't imagine a bird letting us get that close. That bird is sick, as well.

LAVANDERA: Can you see it?

LAVANDERA (voice-over): We tried to get a better vantage point of the wooded area where these birds flock to when we came face-to-face with one of the dying blackbirds.

LAVANDERA (on camera): I feel terrible. All of a sudden, I'm driving and I see the bird just kind of flop 13 up onto the hood 14 of the car here and just fluttering up this way, and it went over the back and now, it's sitting over there on the side of the road.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The little bird couldn't get off the road.

LAVANDERA (on camera): Pull him off over here.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): As I stood there, the little black bird died in my hands.

(on camera): It's terrible.

(voice-over): Ed Lavandera, CNN, Beebe, Arkansas.