Seems to me I remember reading about a big bird die off several years ago. Birds just falling dead. Could have been as much as 10 years ago, just can’t remember. I think it too was in Arkansas.
We had the west nile virus (bird flu) here in S.E. Michigan back around 2002 that were killing off crow all over the place. Other birds were affected too but not as greatly. I found a dead blue jay in my bird bath which I doubt drowned because it was so shallow.
The large die off of crows is due to the fact they are very social and hang around in groups which aids in the transmission of the disease. After a couple years, the virus kinda disappeared and the crows numbers returned to normal. FWIW, that's nature's way of controlling out of control populations of birds.
Another occurance we have here in Michigan which is cyclical affects raccoons. Raccoons are succeptable to a disease that is similar to distemper and when their numbers get out of control as happened back in the early 1990's, you would see these damn coons wandering aimlessly during the daytime. I was golfing at one of the metroparks here one day and I saw at least 10 coons wandering the course in their sick daze......