We all know the difference between "dog people" (magnanimous, outdoorsy, social, can walk up to a stranger with another dog and just say "Hi" without having a panic attack), "cat people" (introverted, like to wear oversized sweaters, books > human interaction, house smells weird), "outliers" (hedgehogs, guinea pigs, reptiles, amphibians, insects). These people are fine to be friends with, but, like...don’t get too close. Then there are "bird people." People who want to live with an animal that’s basically in the "terrible twos" forever. Additionally, they’ve got major neurosis, codependency to rival Kathy Bates in Misery, and pretty much just scream all the time. What sort of person wants to cohabitate with a small, mentally unstable dinosaur? No one that I want in my life, personally.
Recently, I was sitting on my porch when I heard a blood-curdling shriek. I turned around, and to my utter disbelief, I saw a blue jay with a live mouse wriggling haplessly in its beak. Innocently, I had always assumed these birds just ate seeds and fluttered around Disney princesses. Perhaps it was anthropomorphic of me, but when the jay looked over at me (I would later learn they’re corvids, like ravens and crows), it definitely felt like it was regarding me with malice. Almost as though it was saying, "If you were smaller, bitch, this would be you," before flying off with its writhing, doomed cargo.
Figure 1: What are you lookin’ at?
BIRDFACT!
The Vatican uses lasers to chase off gulls.
Since sniping sky pests with rifles seems...less than holy, and since the large gatherings of people and flowers in the Holy See attract countless numbers of these charming sea birds, the Vatican has had to resort to less-lethal modes of discouragement. If gulls are sufficiently startled, they have been known to vomit profusely, so something both non-lethal and passive is required unless you’re properly in the market for hordes of hurl-covered supplicants. It may not be a proper solution, but at the very least, a temporary stopgap has been undertaken by the folks overseeing the mitigation of chaos during large religious gatherings. This was precipitated by a mass at St. Peter’s cathedral in 2017, where nearly every bloom laid out in preparation for the celebration was stomped, squashed, riotously mangled, or otherwise destroyed by the local herring gulls, who mobbed the city in droves. The papacy requested a solution that didn’t require mass murder, so those that were tasked with managing this problem created a "laser-operated scarecrow." It’s probably less effective than a rifle or 30, but being drenched in bird guts or gull puke on Easter while on a quest for religious enlightenment seems like a good reason to take the high road here.
BIRDFACT!
The Potoo is a fucking cannibal.
While their bizarre visage and call is haunting enough, this strange and elusive insectivore has been known to eat other, smaller birds whole. Confined (thankfully) to Central and South America, Honey I Shrunk the Kids would be a far more macabre film if one were loose in the unassuming suburb Rick Moranis and company lived in.
Figure 2: I scream, you scream, we all scream.
BIRDFACT!
The Emu War.
While we all parody the deadly nature of damn near every living thing in Australia, the emu ranks fairly low on the danger radar. Therefore, it’s especially interesting that the "Emu War" is a real thing that happened and is recorded for time immemorial via bizarro history buffs and traumatized farmers. After WWI, the Aussie government wanted to encourage soldiers to turn some of their large, inhospitable continent into farmland. As you might assume, it was already spoken for. A campaign of massacre ensued after hungry hordes (20K+) of ratites descended on the new farms. Armed with two Lewis guns and some 10,000 rounds of ammo, the farmers took their quarrel large scale. A local ornithologist described the ensuing battle in these words: "The machine-gunners’ dreams of point-blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force, therefore, withdrew from the combat area after about a month" In so many words, we lost.
Figure 3: He won the battle, but not the war.
BIRDFACT!
The Kiwi bird lays eggs that are up to 20% of their own size.
According to the National Audubon Society, this is something like a human giving birth to a full-sized, 4-year-old child. These wacky, flightless birds are confined to the island nation of New Zealand, and though they have no natural predators (and have thus become flightless), they are threatened due to "invasive mammalian predators," which is a nice way of saying "the fucking cat killed another one." Another interesting aside about the Kiwi is that when it emerges from its massive egg, it is (unlike other birds) covered in feathers and basically fully formed. This must make parenting a breeze, perhaps offsetting the suffering of laying an egg that large and making it worth the hassle.
Figure 4: Ouch!
BIRDFACT!
To Out Creep a Creep.
The idea of the "scarecrow" is as old as the hills. How does one, without a constant hired maniac running circles in your field, keep off invading crows or starlings from your farm? The scarecrow has long been an installation, but does it work? Not so much, according to both farmers and ornithologists. Science has tried raccoon urine, loud noises, decoys, dead birds of the type you’re trying to deter, taxidermized predatory birds, and recorded distress calls of the invading species...birds just keep coming back.
Arguably, the worst case of this was at Naval Air Station Midway. Closed after a crippling defeat by Mother Nature in 1993, this small island was a U.S. military outpost initially opened in 1941 as a naval air station of significant strategic importance. Unfortunately, both Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses already had rent paid for. Though not malicious, these seabirds had little to no experience with large, ungainly primates like us and were more curious than cautious. Sadly, this created a real problem called "birdstrike" (for which an absolutely amazing device called the chicken cannon has been invented—yes, it is a cannon that fires grocery store chickens at planes to test their vulnerability—and yes, it’s amazing).
Figure 5: The chicken cannon in all its glory
Birdstrike is a very real problem. On Midway, before closing, Admiral Benjamin E. Moore reported upwards of 538 birdstrikes in a single year. Imagine yourself, as a pilot, trying to launch any type of tactical military assault while simultaneously, your plane engines are angrily doing their best at digesting the guts, bones, and feathers of hundreds of kamikaze avian idiots. After years of ineffectual trials, no solution could be found. It’s "for the birds," as they say...
Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle is an ex-animal wrangler and writer. She can be found on Instagram as @EsmeraldaSilentCitadel.
