ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512250042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WINCHESTER
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
THEY TRIED EVERYTHING to get those pesky, dirty starlings to take off. And then, bang! They found the solution.
The unwelcome residents of Winchester's downtown pedestrian mall were disgusting to customers and shop owners, who were sickened by white goo underfoot and on their cars.
``It literally covered the sidewalk,'' Winchester Public Works Director Gary Lofton said. ``It was very bad.''
Starlings seemed to have come to stay in the trees along the Loudoun Street mall and its side streets.
Lofton and his staff, who normally repair traffic lights and perform other such mundane tasks, were given the mission of driving the birds away. They read studies about nuisance birds and brainstormed for ideas. For months, they tried various methods.
Lofton thought he hit on the answer in the summer. He bought ``Bird 2000,'' an electromechanical owl that he placed in the trees. Workers rigged the plastic decoy so that it would periodically light up and make noise, which they thought would spook the starlings.
Wrong.
``The third or fourth time it was like, `OK, big deal,''' Lofton said. ``The birds went to where they thought it was a safe zone - where if [the owl] does something, 'we can get out of there fast.' It's like another piece of furniture to them.''
Then Lofton and his men decided that beating on the tree trunks might frighten the starlings. ``The third night, the birds basically said, `Eh, that can't hurt us,''' he said. ``Now what do we do?''
Lofton knew he had to find some kind of device that would frighten the pests enough that they wouldn't have time to get used to it.
``We thought we hit just about every option known to man at that point,'' he said.
He stumbled across a box of ``crackering balls.'' For less than $16, Lofton bought a box of 72 of the green plastic balls that, when they ignite, give off a bang and shoot sparks between 5 and 8 feet long.
``They're the kind that's illegal - for most purposes,'' said Lofton, who bought them in Pennsylvania where they are sold legally. ``It's not a loud bang, not a whole lot of explosive charge in it.''
Workers began by throwing explosives into trees on the south end of the mall where the problem was the worst. Lofton and his staff, Brian Wisecarver and David Cesefske, went from tree to tree setting off the fireworks until all the birds left.
``From the very first time, it was effective,'' Lofton said. ``The birds came out of there like right now. What you had to do is actually follow them down the mall. To say it's been effective is an understatement.''
While other city and Frederick County residents have complained that the problem has just been pushed into their neighborhoods, city officials say they are glad to have the birds out of the central business district.
``We didn't tell them where to go. We just told them to go,'' Cesefske said.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB