Dutch scientists probing mystery of mass bird deaths

It was late on a stormy Saturday night when marine biologist Mardik Leopold's phone rang at his home on the remote northern Dutch island of Texel. On the line was a coast-watch volunteer calling to tell him of reports of hundreds of dead guillemots washing up along the country's shores. "The next morning, my phone rang red-hot from callers all over reporting dead birds," Leopold, based at Wageningen University's marine research department in the northern port city of Den Helder, told AFP.