I am so glad you said that. I live in Delaware and my first thought was the thousands and thousands of snow geese now migrating here. Don't know if that was the cause but there are so many it's like living snow.
Then I thought...Nah...a bird wouldn't bring down a big plane like that. But these birds are everywhere right now.
It doesn't take much to wreck a jet engine. A bird of any size getting sucked into those turbines moving at tens of thousands of RPM will trash the fans.
Google "bird strike" for some pretty scary pictures of what can happen when plane meets bird. Airports are usually very concerned about flocks of birds near their boundaries and take steps to drive them off (noisemakers, dogs, etc.).
Of course, then there's the picture I saw over the weekend of what happens when a King Air hits a deer with the right propeller. Ain't pretty.
}:-)4
Bird strikes are killers! Since 1978, 35 USAF aircrewmen have died due to bird strike damage and crashes.