Living with a dangerous neighbour: Australian magpies in a suburban environment
Posted on 05/18/2005 9:01:25 AM PDT by Asphalt
HOUSTON (AP) - Like a scene from the horror movie "The Birds," large black grackles are swooping down on downtown Houston and attacking people's heads, hair and backs.
Authorities closed off a sidewalk after the aggressive birds, which can have 2-foot wingspans, flew out of magnolia trees Monday in front of the County Administration Building.
"They were just going crazy," said constable Wilbert Jue, who works at the building. "They were attacking everybody that walked by."
The grackles zeroed in on a lawyer who shooed a bird away before he tripped and injured his face, Jue said. The lawyer was treated for several cuts.
It appears that the birds are protecting their offspring. On Monday a young grackle had fallen out of its nest and adult birds attacked people who got too close, Jue said.
Another bird attacked a deputy county clerk.
"I hit him with a bottle," said Sylvia Velasquez. "The other birds came, and one attacked my blouse and on my back."
Two women came to help her after she fell to the ground, and the birds attacked them as well. The group escaped by running into the building.
"This is a very Hitchcock kind of story. Very Tippi Hedren," said downtown worker Laura Aranda Smith, referring to one of the stars of Alfred Hitchcock's move "The Birds."
I can believe that. We had a blue jay nest in our backyard, and last month they raised four babies. The parents ignored us as long as the babies were in the nest, even though the nest was only about nine feet up and we walked right under it a lot while puttering the backyard, but as soon as the babies started taking exploratory hops out of the nest, the parents started dive-bombing us if we got near. One gave me a pretty good peck on the top of my head and drew blood as I walked by one time. I started wearing a baseball cap in the backyard until the babies were gone.
Something about these two words together just cracks me up.
I heard that the birds were upset because keepers in the Houston Zoo flushed a Crow-ran down a toilet. Isikoff is looking into it.
I'll go have a lie-down now . .
I remember several years ago when SA had a large problem with the grackles. If memory serves, first they tried the owl statues then they tried the sound of a cannon every hour or so and then they put nets over a lot of the trees along the Riverwalk. I don't know if the nets helped out or not but I remember it was a big deal in SA because it was affecting tourism along the river.
Living with a dangerous neighbour: Australian magpies in a suburban environment
Anybody wanting on or off the bird ping list, let me know.
You might be needing an unbrella.
There's not much that intimidates a Mockingbird.
Grackles are evil. We have one that likes to rip the heads of of baby sparrows and leave the little headless bodies in the garden. I wish I could shoot it but the neighbors are too close.
The poor Grackle is universally loathed; I think it's just misunderstood. :)
The birds win.
They ARE nasty birds. I keep the population down by making a ruckus when they arrive in large numbers...I keep a large metal pan on the front porch that I bang against the rail when they start congregating to keep them from roosting. They are basically cowards and don't seem particularly bright, as birds go. The noise doesn't seem to deter the other birds very much; in fact some of them learn to ignore it altogether, but the Grackles hate it. There are a few persistent ones though, and sometimes I will leave for a couple of hours and when I return, they've savaged the feeders and really dirtied the birdbath. In fact, when I get home from work, all I have to do is take one look at the birdbath to know if there were many Grackles around. And I never leave my car out of the carport anymore. I can come home for lunch and in 45 minutes have a nasty mess. That's not all Grackles though. I have a lot of birds around.
Good description.
You should join us on the bird threads.
Looks similar to the grackles we have here in Pittsburgh although ours are black with a metallic, jade green, irridescent head. They are a pain in the butt, my neighbor has a bird feeder and they hang around a lot. When I went to Cape Canaveral, they have the Boat Tail Grackle and they hang around the food courts, they even come up and you can feed them by hand.
This made me LAUGH OUT LOUD!
Thanks!
I can just visualize it so clearly.
I once made the mistake of feeding the seagulls at St. Pete, Fl. They attacked, grabbing my bag of saltines away from me, leaving me running and screaming!
Yes, happy endings were required by law in those days. I remember on Hitchcock's TV show he would always come on after the story ended, and tell us that the villain got caught and punished.
Glad I made you laugh! :-)
Don't they already?
Oh, I'm thinking 'judges.'
Oh well, same difference.
I didn't know there was a bird ping list but, as a parrot owner, I probably should be on it. Thanks.
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