BIRD INVASIONS
Hitchcockian scenes in California, birds behaving badly in Florida, and a very out-of-place vulture on the Kent coast
SWIFT INVASION
A family in Torrance, California, were forced out of their home by a flock of birds that swarmed down the chimney and took over the house. Video on YouTube (https://youtu.be/h5sT4Whhw_M) shows the birds, Vaux’s swifts, also known as chimney swifts, wheeling around the house before plunging down the chimney en masse. “We lost count at 800,” said homeowner Patrick Belleville. Once inside, the birds clung to the ceiling, walls and pictures and crowded at the windows. Despite following Animal Control advice to open all the doors and windows so the birds would leave of their own accord, the family found the swifts refused to depart and were forced to retreat to a nearby hotel for the night. It took a relative three days to evict the invaders, and even after that they continued to find stray birds in cupboards and wardrobes. Many of the family’s possessions had to be thrown out after being contaminated with bird droppings. A few days earlier, the same thing happened 100 miles away in Montecito, where a flock of over 1,000 swifts flew down a chimney but were kept out of the house by a metal grille in the fireplace. Firefighters constructed a chute system to funnel the birds to freedom via the house’s back door. A protected species, Vaux’s swifts are particularly prone to this kind of behavior, as they often nest in chimneys. BoingBoing.net, 29 April 2021; Los Angeles Times, 30 April 2021.
CONDOR INVASION
After a weekend away, Cinda Mickols returned to her home in Tehachapi, California, to find 10 per cent of the world’s population of endangered California condors hanging out on her porch. The condor population fell to a low of only 27 birds in 1987, but there are now an estimated 200 of the birds after intensive conservation efforts and a captive breeding programme. Twenty of these large birds, which can have a 10-foot (3m) wingspan, had congregated at Mickols’s home. This rare wildlife spectacle had a downside as the birds had comprehensively wrecked her new back porch, covering it in excrement, knocking plants over, shredding the hot tub cover and damaging screen doors. “It looks like there was a party,” said Michael Fry, a scientist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service who works on California condor conservation, adding that they “will feed communally, they tussle with each other. They might even play tug of war over a carcass… But I don’t know what they were all doing on her deck.” Smithsonianmag.com, 7 May 2021.
VULTURE INVASION
The Tampa, Florida, suburb of Westchase is also under siege from large carrion-eating birds. An invasion of turkey vultures has been disrupting the district since arriving three years ago, with multiplying numbers creating mess and destruction. Westchase resident Judy Oliveri said “We could have 20 to 25 vultures on our roofs. They land on our screens, their underfeathers are all over the roof, their droppings are all over the place”. The vultures are a state and federally protected migratory bird so the residents cannot take action against them without a permit. The Department of Agriculture has promised to remove the birds but is yet to set a timetable. “They are destroying our neighbourhood and our property values. I would like them gone,” Oliveri said. [AP] 13 May 2021.
KENT VULTURE
Halfway round the world, a resident of Seasalter near Whitstable in Kent had a rather smaller vulture invasion, coming home to find a palm-nut vulture, also known as the vulturine fish eagle, sitting on the back of one of his patio chairs. The bird, a native of Africa, had escaped from a private collection in Essex before crossing the Thames estuary to Kent, where it had taken refuge after being attacked and injured by a mob of seagulls. Mark Habben, from the Wildwood Trust, which runs a nearby wildlife park, came out and rescued the vulture before returning it to its Essex home. “It was certainly an interesting day, and in all these years, I can definitely say I’ve never had to rescue a palm-nut vulture,” he said. Kentonline.co.uk, 6 May 2021.