Bird poop

Factual Questions
1

Why do birds always poop on darker colored vehicles? Or do they just not like me?

2

OK, two poop threads in one day?? :wink:

FWIW, my car is brigth blue, and it gets shat on all the time. Once, I was driving OUT OF THE CARWASH, and a bunch of sadistic Evil Pigeons From Hell were sitting on the roof over the entrance and put some primer on my bonnet when I exited the place.

All pigeons must die. What sort of function do these fat bastards have in the evolutionary chain, anyway?

3

Hmm, I suppose the color doesn’t matter. Birds are colorblind anyway, right? But I know that they all zero in on one car. It is always my car in the parking lot that has been turned into an appaloosa. Why can’t they decorate a co-worker’s car for a change?

4

Just the other day, I was hit by falling pigeon poop! I was hit with so much poop, I almost threw up. I was standing on the sidewalk at night and was hit from my head all the way to my hand. I was nearly covered in poop. I looked up to see about 30 sleeping pigeons sitting on a wire above me. I think somthing startled them and they all shit at the same time. I felt like I was in a Mel Brooks film.

5

I knew a nun who told us a of a fellow nun. On the way to chapel, a bird pooped on the nun’s veil. She ran back inside, changed her veil, and went back to Mass. When she got back, the poop had eaten a hole in the veil!

Another time, I was at Kennywood with a friend and while we were renting a little paddle boat, a bird shat on her leg!
Ha!

6

Hee hee hee hee

My grandma told me about a visit she had made to some arboretum or other. A bunch of somewhat exotic birds was an added attraction. There was a very bald man in her tour group, and as one of the larger birds flew overhead…

heeheeeheeheee

7

One Car Talk caller asked why his new white car got much more bird poop than his old dark colored car which was parked in the same spot. You can read the responses here (and listen to the original call if you have RealAudio installed). But you are asking why the dark colored one gets more poop? So maybe there is no difference… Or maybe bird poop, being light colored, is much more visible on dark colored vehicles.

8

[sub][Great, I’m reading this at home and all my research materials and documentation are at work!][/sub]

  1. Birds are not necessarily color-blind. There have been color identification studies with seagulls and other birds that rely heavily on vision for food location. In addition, there was a program segment on (Discovery Channel? Animal Planet?) about an African Grey parrot that could identify not only objects but also colors.
  2. The color of bird poop will depend on what they have eaten. For the most part, digested materials will pass through the alimentary system in as little as 15 minutes. (I own a cockatiel; 10 minutes after she eats dinner, she goes (literally) back in the cage.) The white part of the feces is (IIRC) uric acid, which is why you want to get it washed off your car quickly. The darker part is, well, solid material. When Zeus (my cockatiel) eats peas or spinich, it takes on a distinctive green color. As far as targeting a white car versus a dark car, it’s going to depend on what they eat and how much it contrasts with the car. Believe me, I have a white car, and I notice the dark splotches more quickly than the white splotches.

And it’s not only cars. When I was living back north, my neighbor on the east side of the house paid my neighbor on the west side of the house to remove his family’s grape arbors. It seems that the birds were eating the grapes, and in flying over our house, got enough lift and direction to splatter his (east neighbor’s) new white siding with long splotches of purple, sometimes up to a foot long. (Our house never was hit, though.)

9

Thanks to everyone for the information. The grape arbor story is really funny.