Posted on 02/10/2005 3:01:39 PM PST by aomagrat
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Dozens of birds, drunk from eating holly berries, crashed into the glass of an office building and died earlier this week.
"It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie," worker Denise Wilkinson said. "It was spooky. You could hear them where they flew into the glass."
Warm weather and an ample supply of berries attracted hundreds of cedar waxwings into the enclosed courtyard of the three-story building Tuesday,
The birds began getting drunk on the berries. They got so loopy that some were falling off branches and others were slamming into the glass walls that enclose the courtyard, said Burgess Mills, the building's owner.
About half of the 100 birds that slammed into the building died, workers said.
Groundskeepers have tried to help the birds by putting tape on windows or nets over the holly trees to keep them from eating the berries, Mills said.
I saw a seagull in a mall parking lot recently. Big bird.
The odd thing was, the mall is in Denton, TX. It's nowhere near the sea. The closest lake is about an hour away. I wonder what it was doing in the parking lot, all by itself. O_O Stupid bird.
We see them all the time here in colorado. Ain't no ocean near us.
Reminds me of that drunk Superman joke where he cons a guy into jumping off a building after he does it.
>>We also have the dove/ hawk problem at times.
I had that problem in Grad School. But I was studying Game Theory at the time (badabing).
"And in other news, "Polly" was issued her first FWI ticket and sentenced to 20 hours community service, which consisted of cleaning the "human poop" from all of the sidewalks at the local parks."
BUT- when they are around, you know there are fish to be caught:):) OR- they are waiting for someone to catch the fish so they can do a fish-snatching!
This also happens with elephants. Long ago I read that some place in Africa or Asia there's a sugary plant called a merula fruit that the elephants love. Problem is they take so ling to digest it that it ferments while it's inside them, producing lots and lots of ethyl alcohol, "moon," as it's known here in Tennessee. Then the same thing happens to the elephants as happens to good 'ol boys who drink the "moon." The locals have no end of troubles until the merula fruit stops popping out and the drunken elephants sober up and go their way.
Seen seagulls here in Nevada on occasion - usually by the city dump gorging themselves on the goodies.
This happened when I was a kid in Houston. A bunch of cedar waxwings hit the fermented berries next door and the proceeded to carpet bomb our backyard, including the pool. Dad was duly irate...
Damn I hate it when that happens.
I try really hard to hit the floor before I hit the glass.
Personal perogative, that.
Some male cardinals will attack their image in a window endlessly..
Had it happen to me most of this past summer. Took me a week or so to figure out what was that large tap on the window and then couldn't stop watching that dunderhead and laughing out loud at his antics.
Click the Graphic J
An advance scout. You should have shot it when you had the chance. Seagulls have no water boundaries anymore, they will fly as far as it takes to find garbage and it looks like they have located a new food source.
Word of warning, if one of those monsters ever craps on you car, wash it off immediately! It will literally eat thru the paint finish.......
The odd thing was, the mall is in Denton, TX. It's nowhere near the sea. The closest lake is about an hour away. I wonder what it was doing in the parking lot, all by itself. O_O Stupid bird.
When they are not at the ocean, seagulls are at the dump.
I suppose they'll just have to adapt, eh?
This reminds me of an issue of MAD magazine I saw as a kid. They had a cartoon of dracula biting a drunken bum on the neck in an alley. In the next frame, Dracula is stumbling around drunk.
I would think that this would be a smorgasbord for the local stray cats.
If it does and the word gets out, you won't find a holly with berries anywhere within ten miles of a college campus!
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