We’ve all seen those cartoons or funny commercials where birds “zero” in on hapless people before dropping a load. What I want to know is, is there any evidence that birds do this in real life?
…all over my car!
Not quite the same thing but I remember reading that turkey vultures will regurgitate (throw up) on a person if they feel threatened.
Considering they eat road kill, this must count as one of the nastiest things any human could possibly experience.
As the owner of a baby cockatiel I can tell you that birds will crap anywhere at anytime on anything or any one. They crap in their their sleep too.
I don’t believe that they do it with malice but they do it often enough that you never know.
I have had an outdoor job for 22 years. The only time I got hit by bird crap was about 2 weeks after I started a run for elected office (city council). Make of that what you will.
Working at a wildlife shelter, I’ve experienced this. Yup, it’s about the vilest thing imaginable. They’ll defecate, too. The thing is, as nasty as it is, they look so pitiful and sad when they’re grounded, I feel sorry for em.
When caged, hawks will turn around and fire a squirt at ya. I got a good dose on my head when bending down in front of the cage once. He had mighty good aim! :eek:
These are cases when the birds are extremely threatened by big gawking moneys, though. I’m not sure that they do it for a lark in the wild.
"Do birds ever crap on people on purpose? "
Only for folks they really dislike… 
Which, of course, begs the question of whether or not Barking Spider has been getting bombarded by the birdies lately… 
I believe they do, from personal experience.
It happened when I was on an Earthwatch project in Baja California. I was on a small (no more than 200m across) island just off the coast which was home to may sea birds, doing, oh the irony, a Guano survey. This involved setting off on a straight line across the island and, every ten paces, stopping and making an estimate of what percentage of the surrounding 4m[sup]2[/sup] was covered in bird poop. At one point I must have strayed too close to the birds cliff side nesting area because I was suddenly dive bombed by several sea birds with a gentle ‘splat, splat, splatter’ just around me, skewing the survey estimate for that square quite considerably! I only received one direct hit on the back of the neck. Warm and not nice.
Wait til the little varmint gets bigger…
Having owned 3 lovebirds, a conure, and a cockatiel, I can say with some authority that pet birds (at least) do occassionally express displeasure and anger by crapping on humans. They’ll do it to each other, too (my mated lovebirds once had a birdcrap and water fight over their bathtub - the result was two pissed-off soaking wet birds with lumpy white streaks down their backs from head to tail)
Thank you for these posts. It made my day.
Thanks for the warning Broomstick. This is the first bird we’ve had that is tame enough to handle all the time and I have my eyes clouded by birdie love. Of course I am also this bird’s bitch and he knows it.
I have no idea, but this definitely is one of the questions the answers to which I’ve always wanted to know, but never dared ask.
Ayesha - the upside to having a very tame bird is that they are (sometimes) capable of a limited form of toilet training.
Everytime the bird poops, say something like “poopy” or “whoopsie” or something equally cute. (Keep in mind, cockatiels can also learn to talk, so there’s good chance the little darling will pick up the word and use it). Over time he/she will learn to associate the action with the word. Then, while the little darling is sitting on your finger hold his/her little birdie butt over a trashcan or other suitable receptacle, say “poopie!”, and the critter should shortly learn to dump on command (more or less… they do have minds of their own…) Once “poopied” sweet’ums should be “safe” for around 20 minutes.
Trainability varies from species to species. The lovebirds were never real great at doing it on command, but did seem to get the message that it was impolite to poop directly on humans. Often, they’d be sitting on a shoulder, suddenly run down my arm, hike their butts over the side, poop, then run back up to the shoulder. The conure really caught on - would not only poop on command, but if you told him to step onto your hand he’d take a moment to poop before doing so without even being told. The current household cockatiel is still young and still in training, but he’s making good progress with the “impolite to poop on people” concept and gets the “poopie” command right about 2/3 of the time.
This requires a great deal of consistency and patience. But we find it worth it to take the time to teach this to the birds since ours spend a lot of time out their cages hanging around (and on) people.
Awwwwww LMAO at “poopie”
Thank you so much ** Broomstick** for sharing. 
I love this board.
My Dad comes back form work regularly complaining about the birds leaving their deposits all over his Volvo and how its corrosive and will ruin his paint work and generally making a lot of fuss about it. Why did they “target” him? One day I passed by his workplace I noticed he parked his car under a tree. It just also happened to be the only tree on the street and thus the only place birds would perch. Dad mentioned he parked there because it was convienient, nice one.
Of course birds do that. Steve Martin knew it and even wrote a poem about it:
Oh pointy bird
Oh pointy, pointy
Anoint my head
Anointy nointy
Lovely isn’t it, although it does sound like he may be asking for it.
to make this legal: I don’t know if birds crap on people on purpose, but it’s the funniest thread I’ve seen in a while.
I clearly remember, as a child, seeing a very large crow eating some fallen fruit in the garden. I decided to throw an apple at it, causing it to fly up in a swooping semi-circle, up over my head and over the house. Before it was out of view, a huge splat of hot bird crap hit my head and neck, sliding down my school shirt collar in disgusting wet warmth. A direct hit, and I certainly deserved it… lesson learned!
Considering how incredibly intelligent crows can be; fashioning tools, and dropping hard nuts onto roads for cars to crush under-wheel etc, I can certainly believe the sh*t-missile was a completely intentional and expertly accurate retaliation manoeuvre for the thrown apple, I mean this thing GLARED at me when the apple landed nearby
Leo Bloom contemplates defecation and what it’s like, as he does frequently:
“Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here’s good luck. Must be thrilling from the air”…
–Ulysses, Lestrogynians
(Look at the beauty of rhythm and alliteration in that first sentence!)
And welcome to SD, Munchy.
Do birds ever crap on people on purpose?
The Foo Bird does.
[spoiler]A man went to Africa to do some game hunting.
While there, he hired a young native to accompany him as his guide.
Soon, a large flock of birds flew overhead and the hunter took aim.
The guide grabbed his arm and said “Oh, no! These are Foo Birds and to shoot one means terrible things will happen to you!"
The man figured that was only a superstition of the natives and shot one down. Then the rest of the flock returned and pooped all over him. He hollered at the boy, “I must have some water right away to wash this mess off." The boy said “Oh no! To wash the crap of the Foo Bird off means sudden death immediately!"
Again the hunter ignored his advice, found water and got cleaned off. Sure enough he dropped dead then and there. The moral of this story is “If the Foo shits, wear it.”[/spoiler]