Oct 13, 2009 10:00 pm US/Eastern
Ill. Neighborhood Channels Hitchcock's 'The Birds'
Plagued By Numerous, Messy Birds, Residents Run For Cover
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Cars covered in bird droppings are a common sight on a stretch of Parnell Street in the Bridgeport neighborhood, after hundreds of Starlings have started nesting in the trees.
CBS
Who could forget the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds." In one Chicago neighborhood, fact
has been imitating that classic fiction and residents have been running
for cover.
Bridgeport resident Paul Piraino said, "I've been here over 20 years and I've never seen anything like this."
Neighbors said that, at dusk, birds take over the trees of Parnell Street, reports CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago.
"All my neighbors on this block are infected on the blocks by the birds on these trees," Piraino said. "It's like the movie 'The Birds' out here. … We have hundreds of birds in each tree."
Michelle Lopez agreed.
"It's getting worse," Lopez said. "I never seen this many before."
The trees are eerily silent by day, but the streets and cars here -- especially the cars -- are marked, so to speak, by the hundreds of birds dropping by.
"That $8 every other day to get your car washed, you know, that's kind of ridiculous," Whitey Miller said. "People walk by and get hit with the bird crap and so forth."
Judy Miller said, "You can't walk past there because you are afraid they are going to poop on your head."
Naturalists identified the birds as starlings; lots and lots of starlings.
"At 6:30 at night they're up there. It seems like they got a choir in all these trees," Whitey Miller said.
Judy Miller said "The noise is so loud you can't sit out here."
Neighbors said the mysterious starlings turned up after the city treated trees in the neighborhood in July for the emerald ash borer. But experts said the same solution used on more than 7,000 trees citywide is not likely to blame.
"It's to the point where we can't enjoy our house can't enjoy our house, can't even enjoy the property," Piraino said.
The starlings' odd migratory patterns might be to blame.
The birds are originally from Europe. They were brought to New York in 1890 by a group trying to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare to North America. The rest, as the residents of Bridgeport have learned, is history.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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