"The neighbour across the road saw birds in the air, all agitated - it was an ominous sight." The couple tried keeping some of the stunned birds warm, and a few recovered and flew away.
But by the afternoon they and friend Lynne Douglas had collected 30 dead sparrows, four dead starlings and one dead blackbird from the Coupers' Awatea St section next to the Castlecliff golf course, as well as from the edge of the golf course, the road and neighbouring sections.
A look in the stomach of one found it was crammed with whole grains of wheat, and Mrs Couper suspects they were poisoned. She's upset because she and her neighbours all feed the birds.
"Who has done this - and why? The birds are harmless."
She is concerned cats and hawks may eat the birds and, in turn, be poisoned.
Mrs Couper rang the golf course where the contractor said no poisoning had been done. She also rang Wanganui District Council.
Margaret Tunbridge, at Wanganui's Public Health Centre, told her the poison was likely alpha-chloralose. It's added to grains to kill birds, and Mrs Douglas said it had been used in the past to kill pigeons at Queen's Park.
It is a narcotic poison that has a hypnotic and anaesthetic effect - birds lose co-ordination and tremble, get cold and die painlessly.
Birds that are only stunned can be kept in a warm, dark place to recover. If they do, there are no ill effects. No poison licence is needed when alpha-chloralose is bought at the low concentrations needed to kill birds. Mrs Couper thinks that may be wrong.
She's rung Whanganui MP Chester Borrows about the matter. "Maybe we need to look at having people sign for such things," she said.
