Perhaps the Giants should have stuck with Candlestick Park because AT&T Park has been beset by birds, gulls to be exact. The team is considering bringing in a falcon to drive away the unwanted visitors that pester patrons for food and drop, um, things, from above onto the heads of folks who just want to see a game.
Hat-tip to long-time reader Meredith for the link.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
Which team are the Gulls favoring? Perhaps, a message is being sent.
Interesting read but I am sure the Giants still prefer the new park over Candlestick !!
Do falcons eat gulls much?
@Greg: In New York there was a famed instance of a Gyrfalcon eating a Herring Gull (famed because the observers failed to properly ID the falcon). I think it is unlikely that most falcons eat many gulls simply because of how big gulls are. That said, every time I have seen a falcon make a pass at a flock of gulls the gulls get off the ground to give themselves room to maneuver. It might be kind of like a person seeing a black bear in the woods – just because people are hardly ever eaten (or even attacked) by black bears does not mean that you wouldn’t give them a wide berth.
These are Western Gulls we are talking about, which are.. well, I can drag out my all time favourite bird quote again.
“Much that is good and all that is evil has gathered itself up into the Western Gull. He is rather the handsomest of the blue-mantled Laridae, for the depth of color in the mantle, in sharp contrast with the snowy plumage of back and breast, gives him an appearance of sturdiness and quality which is not easily dispelled by subsequent knowledge of the black heart within. As a scavanger, the Western Gull is impeccable. Wielding the besom of hunger, he and his kind sweep the beaches clean and purge the water-front of all pollution. But a scavanger is not necessarily a good citizen. Call him a ghoul, rather, for the Western Gull is cruel of beak and bottomless of maw. Pity, with him, is a thing unknown; and when one of their own comrades dies, these feathered jackals fall upon him without compunction, a veritable Leichnamveranderungsgebrauchsgesellschaft. If he thus mistreats his own kind, be assured that this gull asks only two questions of any other living thing: First, “Am I hungry?” (Ans., “Yes.”) Second, “Can I get away with it?” (Ans., “I’ll try.”)
William Leon Dawson, Birds of California, 1923
The world needs more bird writing of that style. It’s hardly surprising they rub the good citizens of SF up the wrong way!