More Than 100 Birds Slam In To Glass Walls (Drunk On Berries)

[matcom]

<snip>

When the birds started slamming into the glass-walled office building’s breezeway by the dozens, workers at Middleburg Park didn’t know what to do.

A flock of cedar waxwings had flown in to feast on the berries of the half-acre courtyard’s holly trees. But the birds got drunk on the berries and confused by the glass walls of the enclosed three-story courtyard.

Disaster ensued.

“It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie,” said Denise Wilkinson, who works for Providence Hospitals’ Sisters of Charity. “It was spooky.

“You could hear them where they flew into the glass.”

The birds started gathering at the building off Forest Drive on Monday, workers said, but the problem grew worse during Tuesday’s warm, sunny weather.

Workers said they saw more than 100 birds that had flown into the glass, about half of which had died. Many of the rest were injured or stunned.

Carolina Wildlife Care picked up 98 birds Tuesday and Wednesday, 62 of which should recover. The nonprofit group was treating the birds at its Bush River Road facility and planned to release them.

“I really saw birds just smacking the windows everywhere and dropping at your feet,” said Joanna Weitzel, with Carolina Wildlife Care. “This is not usual.”

Cedar waxwings are about 6 inches long. The pale brown birds have a black band across their eyes and yellow-tipped tails.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10861216.htm

[BOSSHOG]

1. We have two Holly Trees by the House

and Mocking Birds get their fill of the berries and flit about in a drunken stupor and sqwak all morning long. Its really quite amusing, although I don't think I've ever seen one hurt themselves. I don't think they could hit our windows if they tried.

[Spinzonner]

2. Will they be cited for FUI ?

[livinginphotographs]

3. That used to happen where I used to work.

Every spring, the birds would get shitfaced on berries, then fly into the windows. I only saw a couple get killed though; most were just stunned, and then got up and flew away.