Because of concern over the West Nile virus, groundskeepers have been especially watchful for bird carcasses, he said.

We stopped at a stand and bought a hot black drink from a wrinkled old man wearing a tanned bird carcass as a hat.

A bird carcass, cleaned and skinned.

Some of the bird carcasses were dunked in oil, he said.

At first, bird strike testing by manufacturers involved firing a bird carcass from a gas cannon and sabot system into the tested unit.

Biologists have so far counted 109 bird carcasses and more than 600 birds coated with oil in the area around the wreck.

Mr. Sendlein said that other bird carcasses indicate other collisions that have not been reported, probably because the pilots had not known they happened.

It has gone so far as to build a contraption at one laboratory that can hurl bird carcasses or other objects at aircraft canopies.

It is an area thick with white feathers and rotting bird carcasses.

Last month a Pan Am pilot radioed air traffic controllers at La Guardia that he had spotted a large bird carcass on a runway.