Maryland Blogger Alliance

Alliance FAQs

Latest MBA Posts


March 22, 2006

Birds

I'm sure someone has done a spoof of the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds in which the birds don't attack the people by pecking at them but instead go on strafing missions, bombing them with birdie excrement.

I know that in my years in Rockville, I've thought about making such a movie. Before the corner of Montrose Road and East Jefferson was fully developed and a lot of the trees were cut down, there were thousands upon thousands of crows that roosted every night in the tree tops. Early in the mornings, especially in the fall, the crows would head north to the farms to look for food. (The farms are mostly gone now, too, and the crows tend to eat people garbage twice a week.) On those strafing missions to the farms, the crows would fly overhead in battalions and if you were unfortunate enough to be walking under them, you would wish you had thought of bringing along an umbrella.

Something similar has happened in Orlando, according to this article helpfully linked at Drudge. The articles states that:

Signs warning of bird droppings were posted along a stretch in downtown Orlando this week after cars, benches, sidewalks, plants and even people are hit and covered by the white bird waste, according to a Local 6 News report.

The problem began when city workers removed cypress trees on "bird island" at Lake Eola in Orlando.

The trees had to be removed because the bird droppings were polluting the water, according to the report.

Now, the birds have moved into the city and are covering anything and anyone between Lake Eola and Central Avenue with droppings.
Sounds even worse than my experience in Rockville. The difference is that no one around here was justifying the bird excrement. Mad magazine once described a liberal as someone who tried to see the other guy's point of view while being mugged. In Orlando, we have some Mad-style liberals:
"I was walking the other day and got pooed on walking under these trees," Orlando resident Lisa Valentine said. "Somebody told me it was good luck."

* * * * *
Some people don't let the bird droppings bother them and continue to eat lunch around the droppings.
And, even better, we can always count on the federal government to be there to help.
Federal law prohibits the bird nests in Orlando from being disturbed.
Maybe the folks in Orlando should send the excrement to Washington.