[obol] falcons for hire

From: Lars Per Norgren <larspernorgren@xxxxxxxxx>
To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 21:49:04 -0800
****************

    There has been a compost business in North Plains for many years.
Two winters ago I noticed large numbers of gulls on the wing above this 
facility.
I thought it strange that I'd never noticed them before. At my nearest 
convenience 
I stopped by to see if I could get a closer look on the ground. It turns out 
the company
"Nature's Needs" had been bought by a bigger firm, which was attempting to 
process
waste food products (which are not allowed at the county landfill on Minto 
Bridge Rd).
Recology is the new owners' name. Pro-developement interests have been 
harrassing this
compost operation for years, long before the new owners arrived. Whoever owns 
the remaining
vacant lots in North Plains thinks their potential rent from future apartment 
buildings will
be diminished by the smell. They pretty much want to shut the operation down. 
The residents
of North Plains are not politically active and have never mounted any organized 
resistance
to the compost company. Anectdotal evidence is that they don't care.
      The arrival of hundreds of gulls to the neighborhood provided the squeaky 
wheels with a new
and better cause for alarm. They claimed the gulls posed a health hazard and 
tried to produce evidence.
Some chicken bones found in a field three miles away were blamed on the gulls. 
Recology hired
a falcon for $7,000 for three weeks to keep the gulls away, at which point the 
food pits were covered.
I have not noticed gulls there since. The whole thing is idiotic. A legitimate 
business wasted a 
hefty sum, I doubt a single resident of the town noticed before or after. I did 
see a flock of at least 300
Thayer's and Herring Gulls in the nearest perrenial grass field prior to this. 
I've never seen so many in
January before. They were feeding on moths I think, in the style of Horned 
Larks, the whole flock
rolling forward from back to front.
      The previous fall I noticed the Riverview Landfill outside McMinnville 
and went to the gate to see
if I could get in. Presuming the woman on duty was a non-birder I said,"Can I 
drive into the dump to
look at seagulls?"
       "You mean GULLS?" The intonation clearly implied I was some kind of 
moron, similar to my response
when I hear someone say "forager". "No, you can't look at them and you can't 
take pictures of them. "
I suppose that if I had a load of trash to accompany my optical tools I might 
have gotten in (and paid
of course). She went on to say that these gulls occasionally showed up "when 
it's stormy at the beach."
I know there is a movement afoot among the granola-crunching-crypto-fascist 
health nazis of Mac to
shut down the dump completely, with a fairly short time line. I presume the 
current falcon nonsense there
is another attempt at PR.
      At one point last winter there was a possible Lesser Black-backed Gull 
reported from this gull
flock. I traversed a large clover field to get a closer look. Perhaps folks 
have occasionally noticed
lawns or golf greens treated by a machine that pulls little plugs of turf out 
of the ground to enhance
aeration. This entire clover field (60-80acres) was covered by similar holes 
resulting from the gulls'
pursuit of worms. The soils in this area bear the names "Dayton". "Amity", 
"Woodburn"and "McMInnville".
They are very fertile, but fine textured, poorly drained and as a result very 
"heavy". It struck me that
the gulls were providing the farmer with a valuable service. I can't imagine 
any one is negatively impacted
by the gulls. I haven't heard any indication that they are vectors for Nile 
Virus or Avian Flu. Stupidity rules.
        I can't imagine there's any source of counter-response. I've certainly 
got my own fish to fry just now.
As I am often eager to point out , our own corner of Paradise has no monopoly 
on stupidity. A woman 
a short drive north of Trondheim (central Norway) was recently evicted from her 
home for feeding the 
gulls in her own yard. The neighbors said she had done it for years against 
their wishes and they didn't
like the noise. "Up to seventy gulls have been counted at once."     Lars  

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[obol] falcons for hire

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