Mystery surrounds the death of hundreds of starlings which fell on to the A2 motorway near Vinkeveen on Thursday.

The birds were scattered over three lines of the highway, causing delays of over an hour for motorists while the bodies were cleared away.

The transport ministry’s roads department had asked government experts to examine the birds. to see if they could find a cause. However, the NVWA said it would not carry out an investigation because there are no indications that the starlings had bird flu, local broadcaster RTV Utrecht said.

A spokesman for the bird protection group Vogelbescherming told the AD that the birds may have been startled by a peregrine falcon and become disorientated, flying off in different directions.

‘They may have hit the road in a panic,’ a spokesman said. ‘But that still has to be looked into.’

As yet, no one has reported seeing the birds take evasive action from a predator or falling from the sky.

Such mass deaths are rare but do happen and earlier this year, security camera footage caught a swam of yellow-headed black birds crashing to the ground in Mexico.