A large flock of dead grackles, sparrows and pigeons scared the poop out of Texas officials, causing the shutdown of a 10 block area in downtown Austin, Texas this morning. People dressed in Hazmat suits cleared up the birds, whose bodies will be tested to identify the cause of their untimely deaths.
Some experts said the most likely cause of the die-off was a deliberate poisoning. "It happens quite frequently," said Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation at the National Audubon Society in Washington.
Grackles are a crowlike bird regarded as a major pest in Texas, with Austin sidewalks sometimes covered in their droppings.
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I read an adorable book last year called The Boyfriend School, by Sarah Bird. It was set in Austin in the oil bust of the 1980s. The heroine was a photographer for an indie rag called The Austin Grackle. As her sleazy boss/boyfriend explained it, he named it that because the grackles move in after everything else leaves. This story just made me think of that.
I seem to remember another story like this coming from Texas recently. Maybe local officials should consider other ways of controlling unwanted birds, if poisoning results in the business district being shut down. It seems like a Wile E. Coyote way of doing things.
Huge flocks of blackbirds (mostly starlings and grackles) winter in Austin. They come in huge flocks to roost at night in the parking lots of malls after they close and in a public park that is in the downtown area.
They're so many of them that its like a scene from Hitchcock's movie The Birds. Some people get freaked out by it. It would not surprise me if an individual poisoned them. As far as I know the state and local governments in Austin don't do anything about the birds, and they definitely don't poison them.
Please e-mail me ASAP.
anybody who calls grackles "crow-like" knows nothing about crows.
Hmmm...
We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment,
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strych'nine
We feed to a pigeon.
(It just takes a smidgin!)
To poison a pigeon in the park.