Speaking of Hootie….this YouTube video from CinD is all about the audio. Here’s her intro…

Got a good recording of the Decatur City Owls this evening. Can’t see much in the video, but you can hear them loud and clear! This was right outside my front door on Church Street one block north of Glenlake Park.   Enjoy.

How many owls do you hear in the video?   Two? Three?

(aka what I’m terming a “Grack Attack”)

Gike writes in…

There are 100’s of birds going crazy around our house on Garden Lane. What’s the deal? Anyone know what these birds are and what they are up to? Maybe they are just trying to stay warm.

Aren’t they generally grackles?

But hey, I’m not one to identify or explain the behavioral patterns of our feathered friends, however maybe Bruce at “Birding Decatur, Ga” could enlighten us!

Rus writes in and points out this question/response in the AJC earlier this week…

Q: What kind of birds are currently camping out in Decatur Square and why have they taken up at the square? Is anything being done?

TERRY FARR,

Decatur

A: Did you see birds, or just hear them? The One West Court Square building recently installed a speaker system on its roof that plays the sounds of birds of prey: hawks, eagles, owls and sea gulls. The idea is to scare birds away from the building before they fly into its glass-paneled sides. Aside from the noble goal of saving avian lives, the panels cost about $2,500 each to replace.

The building manager has adjusted the sound several times. It started out a bit loud but is now hoped to have gotten to a sound level that scares birds but doesn’t confuse humans.

You may recall that Carl has both written in and approached the city commission about this issue in the past.  If not, here’s the link to that post.  I also remember hearing somewhere that at least one commission member wondered why this was suddenly a problem that needed to be addressed by recordings of coked-up, chirping birds of prey.  (OK, they didn’t say “coked-up”…that’s me employing “artistic license”)

Well, Carl couldn’t stand it then, and though the AJC writes that the building manager has “adjusted the sound”, Rus reports its still too darn loud.

“It doesn’t seem to me that the sound level has been decreased at all. I used to be able to read the paper on the square but now I can’t due to the horrible screeching of what sounds like flying monkeys! They are too loud at Pastries a Go-Go to sit outside, I can even hear them at Dancing Goats! Why hasn’t the city done anything about this? How many windows were actually broken by birds? I remember one or two on the courthouse side that were cracked for years they certainly didn’t rush to replace those and I didn’t see any new damage in the past couple of years. What about the hawks I used to see near downtown? They seem to have been driven away by the recordings. But I’m starting to see more of the critters the hawks kept in check downtown: Rats and Pigeons (Sky-Rats).

So to recap, The recorded “birds” offer:
1) lower quality of life for taxpayers and tourists resulting in less income for local businesses
2) Disturbance of the balance nature that promotes vermin and disease
3) A questionable deterrence of bird strikes on windows on ONE building (may scare confused birds into striking other buildings).”

I’m not usually one to take such strong stances on things, but this action seems to be in blatant disregard to the surrounding area.  A couple initial questions come to mind:  Was permission ever asked for or granted?  How many birds are we talking here?  Has this bird laugh track solved the problem?

As I’ve said before, its not bad enough that its such an unsympathetic building right on top of the courthouse, but now we have to hear from it for miles around?  Give me a break. Prove you’re saving the lives of hundreds of birds and have no other alternative, or turn the dang thing off.

I gotta tell ya 1 West Courthouse Square building. You’ve become “that guy”. You’re the unattractive, noisy neighbor that everyone tolerates, but no one likes.

Not only is your uninspired glass box design a complete eyesore sitting next to our well-loved courthouse, not only is your layout ridiculously annoying with your pointless side entrance and giant parking deck, now you just won’t shut up.

Carl writes in…

For the last month or so, I’ve been confused by the sudden influx of tropical birds to downtown Decatur. It seemed that they were somehow nesting on the 1 W Court Sq building; and, while the toucans were invisible, they could be heard for half a mile away. I originally expressed concern about this bizarre situation but was told by someone who knows birds far more than I that this nonsense was “baby finches.”

I didn’t really understand how the “finches” were invisible, so VERY loud, and seemingly never slept. Perhaps they were adjusting to their new home atop an office building. As the weeks passed, though, I recognized that this noise simply never stopped. I began reaching out via various forms of social networking wondering if anyone knew the deal. Was this a bizarre public art project, somehow organized by AIA/D or a prank? I encountered lots of people along the way (many of whom I didn’t even know) that appreciated my question but had no answers. It seemed that either others had the same question or simply thought I had dreamt the whole thing up. I’d wondered if I could ever gain access to the roof of the building to see what was causing this noise. It became a combined source of frustration and curiosity.

Well, finally, courtesy of a conversation with Mayor Floyd, it seems that we have an answer. “It” is unfortunately neither designed for the public good (in my opinion) nor is it a wonderful new colony of endangered birds. Instead, it’s a device designed to protect the owner of the mirrored building against broken windows. All of the ruckus will theoretically frighten normal birds away from the building so that they do not crash into the glass. Perhaps that IS good for the birds, but I wonder whether all of this noise is good for anyone. If it keeps birds away from the building, doesn’t it also keep them from flying normally in the area? It’s no wonder that I didn’t ever see any nesting in nearby trees, since they’re likely frightened by what seems to be a nearby zoo.

What sort of permit did they secure for this noisemaker? I can hear it two to three blocks away in every direction. What once was amusing is now something that interferes with my morning walks. I can’t hear the normal birds, but I can sure here the artificial ones. I sat outside on the patio at Pastries A Go Go today once again feeling like I was dining at the Rainforest Café.

(I love that last line!)

The city has put a lot of lipstick on this pig over the years. Without Cooks/Sherlock’s and Crescent Moon, its parking deck would be the scourge of downtown. And don’t get me started on those crumbling stone tables/benches. But now, specifically because of its post-modern design, it also must emit noise. (My wife and I had a debate one late evening regarding this very noise. I was in the “bat” camp and she thought they were nocturnal finches. Obviously Carl proved us both wrong.)

Glass skyscrapers the world over MUST exist without this sort of device. Otherwise, from midtown Manhattan to Midtown Atlanta we’d hear only the din of traffic over the cacophony of prerecorded bird chirps. What do the big boys use to avoid bird collisions? My grandmother cut bird shapes out of black construction paper and put them on her windows. Perhaps that could be building-wide art project for its tenents?