NH sees first loon death from avian malaria – but how did we know?

Aubudon has a good story about “bird CSI” and how forensic necropsy work identified the cause of death for the first New Hampshire loon to succumb to avian malaria. (Read it here) It’s an interesting blow-by-blow account of how a pathologist figures out what has happened inside the body being dissected.

Being that this is the first confirmed kill in the region, (the) collaborators still aren’t sure if they’ve found a bellwether for a more worrisome trend. It could be that the loon’s swift death was an anomaly—or it could be the first sign of an epidemic.