A2 - Wednesday, May 5, 1982 - North Shore News

VANCOUVER has been invaded by a horde of
starlings numbering in the millions. I guess it is
the revenge of the Passenger pigeon.

Passenger pigeons, in-
troduced to North America
from Europe, took to the
new world with glee and
quickly multiplied in
numbers until they darkened
the skies with their passage.

They were wiped out, to
everyone's astonishment,
around the tum of the
century. It seemed im-
possible that such a mighty
flock could be utterly
decimated.

Now it is the turn of the
starlings — also an import
from Europe.

Coming so soon after
reports from Ontario that a
“Hitchcock” nightmare has
occurred, whereby legions
of birds have been attacking
cattle in the field, pecking
their eyes out, I'm surprised
that panic hasn't driven the
terrified masses of Van-
couver into the streets.

The sight of starlings
descending like a _ vast
pillowcase of dark feathers
scattered on the wind has a
certain romantic appeal. By
“romantic” I mean in the
great tradition of Godzilla.

What can you do? Can't
poison them — we all know
by now that the poison af-

fects other birds to say
nothing of squirrels and
chipmunks, and is fed back
into the environment,

sometimes into the gullets of
our pets themselves.

Somebody has suggested
disturbing the birds’ sleep
with a blast in the middle of
the night with a super-loud
horn. Oh great.

But there is something
exciting about it, isn't there?

Vividly, I recall, as a boy,
secing the vast archway of
the praime sky closed over
by tens of milhons of
grasshoppers It was hke a
silent thundercloud

DAY

WITH

FRANK
BAKER

sweeping over the
fields.

Verandah screens
soon caked with
bodies. Cattle moaned.
Horses whinnied
miserably. Dogs and cats
took to hiding under por-
ches. I remember being
stirred by the same sense of
awe that always hit me in the
stomach when the first
blizzard came.

While the hoppers never
bit anyone, their shells were
bullet-like and they smashed
into the flesh like spent
shells falling from the sky.

In the fields, there was a
sound like a giant bracelet
tinkling as they chomped
their way through the grain.

Indeed, it was inspiring,
unless you happened to be a
farmer, or a person whose
business in any way was
related to the success or
failure of the farmers.

Many years later, in
Australia, I witnessed the
phenomenon of a “plague of
roos.” Roo, of course, is the
Aussie word for kangaroo.

While driving toward the
famous Nullabor Plain, some
fraends of mine and I ran into
a drought which was forcing
kangaroos by the tens of
thousands into an incredible
mass migration to the south.

It turns out the roos are
attracted to headlights.
Night driving therefore
involved the risk of having
roo after roo settle out of the
darkness onto the road
directly in front of you.
Splat! Splat! and splat!

wheat

were
their

You could weave all you
wanted, but it was im-
possible to miss them all

Most of them were only
three or four feet tall, but
there was one old grand.
daddy roo | swear was seven
feet He parachuted out of

b

Spring of the starling

the sky then hopped to safety
over the roof of our car.

I should add that while we
were busy trying to avoid
hittung the roos, the average
Aussie truck driver — called
a “Truckie” — tries to hit as
many as he can. Aussies
don’t love roos much more
than we love rats.

There is a common
denominator between a
plague of roos, a plague of
grasshoppers and a plague of
starlings —- they tend to eat
all yur berries and
vegetables and that sort of
thing.

There ts a solution. While
I can understand nobody

MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP of Nosth Vancoever streets Pitch-In Week, which runs
May 10-16, gets off to am carly start with
Comba, Grace Jette, Joam Howell, Huber Vroiek, Stella Jo Dean, Peggy Pitt-Brooke,

members (left to right) Margaret

Maureen Fleming and Rellande Paqeect. (Elisworth Dickson photo)

wanting to eat a roo or a
grasshopper, starlings would
make excellent pie, P'm sore.

Vancouver should simply
declare a Starling Derby,
award prizes, and distribute
the appropriate recipes.

Y ou read it here first.

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