After a late rainy season, Spring is here in Southern California. The days are not too hot, not too cold, and everywhere you look you can see birds carrying things back and forth in their beaks: twigs, feathers, scraps of anything. The smaller birds seem to love those nooks and crannies in the ceilings of the Metro shelters. They definitely won’t get rained on, but how much time do they have before the Metro maintenance workers come along and casually toss nest, eggs, baby birds and all? How long does it take a sparrow to hatch eggs and raise chicks until they can leave the nest?
I know sparrows aren’t endangered, but still. I hate seeing fallen nests and crushed baby birds on the sidewalk.
Also, is nest-building season a time of greater risk for birds in general? Usually all you see are the people-friendly sparrows and pigeons walking all over the sidewalk, while the songbirds prefer to stay in the bushes. But these days, everything is coming out and flying around.
This is likely to be more a factor of the particular transit authority’s policy.
Here in Washington, DC, the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) periodically poisons pigeons and starlings, typically causing a lot of sick and dying birds to appear where commuters can see them, leading to public alarm over possible terror attack as well as concern over the cruelty and suffering, leading in turn to promises to handle it better next time. It’s sort of cyclical; what all the incidents have in common is the agency’s failure to learn from the events or even anticipate public reaction.
It may also depend on individuals. Not everyone is heartless. I have read of someone who discovered a blocked vent at their residence and called a technician; the tech investigated, reported a nest of baby birds in the vent, and said flat-out “You don’t pay me to kill baby birds,” and offered to help arrange alternative ventilation for the nesting season.
One possible approach is for you to write to the transit authority and ask them this question. Maybe they already have a policy. If not, perhaps a letter will provoke them to think about public relations, if not mercy.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects most species of birds/nests in the United States. Of course the invasive species it doesn’t protect (pigeons, starlings, English/House sparrows) are the ones most likely to be building nests around the city anyway. You can also get a permit to allow exemptions.
Here in downtown Syracuse, NY, there are a pair of peregrine falcons who have been nesting on the State Tower Building for the last few years and produced 18 offspring. They have a nesting box built for them, a webcam, and when the babies are learning to fly, volunteers stand on the sidewalk below watching out for them. The babies are great big fuzzy things and get banded and put back in the nest. Syracuse is very proud of their falcons, we don’t produce many celebrities.
Many birds that inhabit urban areas are unprotected, because they are not native or migratory. As far as the regulations are concerned, they might as well be flying rats.
Nationwide, native and migratory bird species are usually protected.
In California it is illegal to harass or disturb any native or migratory bird while it is nesting. Technically, of course. If a rotten kid nails a Robin with a pellet gun, he will not wind up on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
The common understanding is that only the species on the federal or state endangered species lists are protected. Not so. Most species are protected, but endangered species laws extend that protection to cover not only the corpus, but he habitat of certain species.
