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3 January 2012Last updated at 11:53

As the clock struck 12 and Auld Lang Syne rang out, many

breathed a sigh of relief that the new year had arrived without a

hitch.

This time last year however, residents of a small town in the US

Nature's weirdest events in numbersBy Ella DaviesReporter, BBC Nature

Can science explain mass bird deaths and other mysteries?

Related Stories

The mystery of massbird deaths

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Nature: Behind the ScenesFind out how the BBC Natural History Unit produceswildlife series such as Frozen Planet, Planet Earth andDeadly 60, by the people behind the scenes makingthem.

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The biggest, deadliest andweirdest creatures ever to walk theEarth.

Deadly dinosaurs

A blue tit's singing in our tree, right

now. It must be the mild winter.Jen Davis on Facebook

were fee ling uneasy after mother nature sent them some

see mingly apocalyptic signs.

The town of Beebe in the US state of Arkansas is home to an estimated

1.5 million redwing blackbirds year-round, a species known for flocking

in great numbers.

On New Year's Eve 2011, thousands of the birds fell from the sky in a

single night.

The proceeding days saw the town overrun with hazmat suited

environmental workers and journalists attempting to explain the

perplexing "aflockalypse".

After examining the birds' bodies, pathologists found the birds had died

from trauma injuries and suggested that they were disturbed from their

night roosts by a number of loud bangs, possibly fireworks.

Without good night-vision, the blackbirds simply collided with buildings

and fell to the ground dead.

Although such mysterious natural phenomena can often be explained by

science, they continue to intrigue us.

These are some of the numbers behind nature's weirdest events.

Tongue biter

Cymothoa exigua are one of the 386 species of

isopod or louse known to attach to the tonguesfish after entering through the gills.

Once in place, the parasites feed on the fish,

eating away their flesh and feeding on their

blood supply to become a replacement tongue.

Adult lice can reach up to 4cm (1.57in) in length

and are most commonly found off the coast of

A thousand birds fallout of sky

Locust plague attackscrops in NSW
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California.

The first "tongue biter" in the UK was found

inside a red snapper at a fishmonger's in

London in 2005.

Dr Tammy Horton from the National

Oceanography Centre, Southampton says

they receive roughly one report of the parasites

annually.

They pose no threat to humans but live

specimens can deliver a nasty nip with the

sharp claws they use to attach to the fish's

tongues.

Exploding toads

More than 1,000 dead toads were recorded in Altona, Hamburg, in just a

few days over the spring of 2005.

The toads' usual mating site was dubbed the "pond of death" as

researchers attempted to explain the strange scene.

Investigation of the dead amphibians revealed each had injuries on its

back and its liver had been removed.

Experts deduced that crows had been performing key-hole surgery to

remove the nutritious organ without ingesting the toads' toxic skin. The

clever corvids had attacked while the toads were preoccupied withmating.

As a natural defence, the toads swelled to 3.5 times their normal size but

without a liver to stop their lungs expanding they continued to swell until

they exploded.

The resulting explosions spread the animals' entrails up to a metre in

distance.

A tongue replaced by a parasite
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Seeing red

Tens of millions of ladybirds infested a small town in the US state of

Colorado, turning trees blood red, in 2009.

It was a bumper year for the insects' food source, aphids, due to a

particularly wet spring, with three times the average rainfall in the north

of Jefferson county.

The insects swarmed trees to find mates but quickly dispersed once their

goal had been achieved.

Freeze frame

In 2011, scientists satellite-tracking musk oxen in Alaska, US were

distressed to find their55 subjects frozen solid.

The animals are Arctic specialists with two

layers of fur and can weigh overhalf a tonne.

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Residents were seeing red over an infestation of ladybirds.
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But these adaptations were useless when a

storm at sea created a tidal surge that cracked

the surface of the frozen bay they were

crossing, plunging the oxen into the water.

With air temperatures at -30C the surface of the

water rapidly refroze, trapping the animals in an

icy grave.

Biblical proportions

Last yearbillions of locusts plagued an area of Australia larger than

500,000 sq km (190,000 square miles), twice the size of Britain.

According to the Australian Plague Locust Commission, individual

swarms reached 300sq km in size, with an average of10 locusts per

square metre .

The voracious insects devoured crops From Longreach in Queensland in

the north-east to Melbourne and Adelaide in the south in the largestplague in 30 years.

Experts cited flooding earlier in the year as the trigger for the population

explosion, because locust eggs need warm moist conditions to fully

develop.

Once hatched, it took 6-8 weeks for the locusts

to develop from eggs through nymphs to full-

fledged adults.

The adult locusts lived for up to 10 months,

terrorising Australian farmers and costing them

an estimated A$2bn (US$2.07bn; 1.33bn) as

the insects ate their way through pasture and

cereal crops.

Tragedy at sea

The bodies of8,000 sea birds washed up along

Only the musk oxen's horns and hides were visible
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300 miles of coastline in the north-western US

in 2009.

Rescuers feared an oil spill but the birds were

actually scuppered by a naturally occurring

foam.

A similar incident in California in 2007 where

600 birds were washed ashore was linked to a

"red tide" of algae out at sea.

The algae produced a foam that was not toxic

but nevertheless proved deadly for the birds by

sticking to their feathers, ruining waterproofing and causing hypothermia

as the cold seawater made contact with their skin.

Thanks to the previous investigation, many of the birds in 2009 were

rescued, cleaned and returned to the sea.

The common link between harmless ladybirds, boundless locusts and

defenceless birds is the natural human curiosity that spurred scientists

into investigating mother nature's mysteries.

Whatever the future throws at us, our fascination with past weird

phenomena could be the key to explaining the inexplicable.

Chris Packham presents Nature's Weirdest Events on Tuesday 3

January, 20:00 GMT on BBC Two.

Conditions were perfect for a locust populationexplosion

More on This Story

Related Stories

The mystery of mass bird deaths07 JANUARY 2011, US & CANADA

A thousand birds fall out of sky03 JANUARY 2011, US & CANADA

Locust plague attacks crops in NSW29 SEPTEMBER 2010, ASIA-PACIFIC

Ladybird invasion in Colorado12 JULY 2009, AMERICAS
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