# Artificial hawk noises **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444 "2002-11-19T02:42:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/1 "2002-11-19T02:42:50Z")
A hotel and a restaurant play awful squeaking noises on speakers that apparently frighten pigeons away. I couldn’t see trying to sleep, eat or even think with that damn noise going on. ---
**Author:** ![LordVor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@LordVor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LordVor)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/2 "2002-11-19T04:45:20Z")
A local hotel uses them. The local paper ran a great picture of a pigeon sitting on top of the speaker. -lv ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/3 "2002-11-19T11:17:29Z")
- - - I have seen that the sound of a kid racking the action of a Daisy BB gun works pretty well at scaring the birds off… ~ ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/4 "2002-11-19T17:51:50Z")
Here in Austin, I see/hear strange gimmicks to scare away pigeons and (especially) grackles all the time. Problem is, these tricks never work for very long. After a while, grackles wise up. They figure out that there aren’t really any hawks around, and that those menacing-looking owls aren’t real. I’ve actually seen grackles PERCHED on top of big plastic owls that were supposed to frighten them away. Odd but (I thought) amusing anecdote: birds of all kinds pass through Austin every year when migrating south. For that reason, much of the University of Texas campus is deemed a wildlife habitat, so it’s illegal to try to kill grackles. So, what DOES the ground crew do to try to get rid of them? Well, I recall when I worked at U.T. Data Processing, I was walking to my car on a cold, dark December evening, when I heard a terrifying BOOM! I nearly had a heart attack, but recovered and started walking again. Then, there came another BOOM and another near heart attack. A minute later, I saw the groundskeepers with a cannon! Oh, they weren’t allowed to blast the grackles, but they WERE allowed to wheel a cannon around to trees where loads of them were perching, and set off a blast, in the hopes the birds would get scared and fly away! In reality, of course, after each boom, the frightened grackles would fly from Tree A to nearby Tree B. Then the groundskeepers would push the cannon over to Tree B, and fire it again. Naturally, the birds got scared, and flew right back to Tree A, where they’d been minutes before. The cannon didn’t get rid of a single grackle- it just put the birds through a game of “musical trees.” When it was all over, the grackles were still there. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/5 "2002-11-19T17:58:18Z")
Yeah, but I bet it was full as hell. Pretend you were Hornblower or something. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/6 "2002-11-19T23:59:49Z")
Fun as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/7 "2002-11-20T00:20:25Z")
I read the title as “artificial hawk noses”, and thought of Michael Jackson. (((shudder))) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-hawk-noises/137444/8 "2002-11-20T00:56:46Z")
That’s not what he does on top of buildings. [http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/11/19/jackson.baby.reut/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/11/19/jackson.baby.reut/index.html)