Starlings

OYSTERBACK, Md. -- Starting around Groundhog Day, Ferrus T. Buckett begins to build his eel pots. Ferrus, as we all know, is the world's oldest waterman, somewhere between 70 and death. But he still likes to put his pots overboard in March, when those eels begin to return to Chesapeake Bay from the Sargasso Sea.Ferrus sets up his wire mesh and his clamps by the kerosene furnace in the kitchen where it's warm, and works away through the cold weather. For entertainment, he keeps a couple of bird feeders and a suet bag where he can see them out the window.

Wildlife biologist Jeremy Smith loves birds. He admires their "intricate design" and "awesome" variety. But when birds intrude on Smith's workplace, the 33-year-old U.S. Department of Agriculture employee is prepared to eradicate their habitat, harass them off the premises and - if necessary - take a shotgun to them. Smith works at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, serving as the front line of defense against birds that, if left unchecked, could wreak havoc on the engines of planes as they take off and land.

A Taneytown resident has proposed killing the starlings that have plagued the Carnival Drive neighborhood since June.Gail Ansari, a resident who brought her concerns about the continuing problem to the City Council, said that she has information that could provide a solution."

Wildlife biologist Jeremy Smith loves birds. He admires their "intricate design" and "awesome" variety. But when birds intrude on Smith's workplace, the 33-year-old U.S. Department of Agriculture employee is prepared to eradicate their habitat, harass them off the premises and - if necessary - take a shotgun to them. Smith works at Baltimore- Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, serving as the front line of defense against birds that, if left unchecked, could wreak havoc on the engines of planes as they take off and land.

Taneytown resident Gail Ansari asked the City Council last night to financially support her effort to kill the troublesome starlings that have been roosting in her Fairgrounds Village neighborhood for several months.Ms. Ansari seeks money from the city to purchase Starlicide, a slow-acting poison, for farmers to place around their livestock buildings during the winter when the birds seek refuge in barns."The starlings are spreading disease to farm animals," Ms. Ansari said. "The overwhelming number of starlings is an imbalance of nature."

Taneytown residents have been splattered with it and have walked in it.But apparently there's not enough starling guano in the area to present a health problem."

On a spring morning, when every bird seems to be chirping at the same time, European starlings can focus on one song of their own species amid the chatter, Johns Hopkins University scientists have found.The feat parallels the human ability to tune into one conversation at a crowded bar and eventually may offer insight into how babies and toddlers can filter out the patterns of language amid all the background noise.Hopkins scientists made several tapes, combining songs from starlings, brown thrashers, nightingales and mockingbirds.

INDIANAPOLIS - Somewhere on a narrow limestone ledge overlooking the downtown streets of this city is the seat of infamy reserved for Eugene Scheiffelin. Cushioned by several inches of bird droppings and surrounded by the incessant flapping and raspy shrieking of starlings, Scheiffelin would be forced to sit, day and night, tormented by the flying scourge he introduced to North America more than a century ago. Such revenge would indeed be sweet in Indianapolis, but alas, the New York ornithologist has been dead since 1906, while descendents of the 60 starlings he released in Central Park in 1890 have spread and multiplied like mosquitoes at a county fair.

Taneytown residents have been splattered with it and have walked in it.But apparently there's not enough starling guano in the area to present a health problem."

FREDERICK -- The ominous first wave of reconnaissance troops swoops into trees as dusk falls, followed in short order by the entire winged invasion force.In surreal scenes reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," thousands of starlings and crows besiege downtown Frederick squealing, squawking, fluttering and pelting hapless pedestrians and parked cars with missiles that splatter upon impact.But here comes the cavalry! The mayor loads his noise gun. City trucks -- armed with loudspeakers shrieking bird distress calls -- patrol the streets.

A senior at Poly, Keene is a multi-dimensional player for the Engineers' No. 14 volleyball team. A veteran of the Starlings Volleyball Club, she is excellent at back-row defense but is also an offensive threat thanks to a big vertical leap and a powerful arm. Keene has a 3.7 grade point average and participates in the WORTHY (Worthwhile To Help High School Youth) Program, in which she learns about various engineering fields at Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems. She also plays softball and runs indoor track.

CHICAGO -- Scientists are running out of things they think truly separate humans from other animals. For a long time the reigning difference was thought to be tool-making, but then they discovered that chimpanzees and gorillas use tools. One of the last bastions of human uniqueness, they surely thought, is language. Although animals can communicate, it was thought to be in only a fixed way - using sequences of sounds with specific meanings that never vary. Humans supposedly were different because they can follow rules of grammar.

Poly senior Erica Turnbull was so excited about this volleyball season that she began calling coach Tiffany Byrd in June to say she couldn't wait for the first day of practice on Aug. 15. "We had been so determined in the past two years to win the city championship and to go far in regionals and we were really excited to come together and fight for our goals," Turnbull said. So far, the Engineers have lived up to their expectations. They are 6-0 after Thursday's 25-8, 25-12, 25-13 sweep of Northwestern.

INDIANAPOLIS - Somewhere on a narrow limestone ledge overlooking the downtown streets of this city is the seat of infamy reserved for Eugene Scheiffelin. Cushioned by several inches of bird droppings and surrounded by the incessant flapping and raspy shrieking of starlings, Scheiffelin would be forced to sit, day and night, tormented by the flying scourge he introduced to North America more than a century ago. Such revenge would indeed be sweet in Indianapolis, but alas, the New York ornithologist has been dead since 1906, while descendents of the 60 starlings he released in Central Park in 1890 have spread and multiplied like mosquitoes at a county fair.

Walter Starling is running out of signs. "Maybe it will end at 12," he says. "I only have 12 signs." Wherever the sniper strikes, Walt Starling follows. At a power vacuum at a Shell station in Kensington, where Lori Lewis Rivera was murdered, a roadside memorial marks the spot. Forty bouquets. Two American flags. And taped to the vacuum, one "Thou Shalt Not Kill" sign. On the lawn behind Fitzgerald Auto Mall in nearby White Flint, where James "Sonny" Buchanan was gunned down, a note says, "Sonny, there was so much I wanted to say, so much I should have said.

BOULDER, Colo. - Each night at 7:45, the birds come back. Four thousand starlings screech, caw and snap their way into a stand of cottonwood trees, landing high above Mapleton Mobile Home Park. As the birds settle in, there's another sound, reminiscent of the patter of a summer rainstorm. Only it's not rain. It's the steady "plop-plop" of thousands of bird droppings - splattering people, plants and property from eight stories up. Walkways accumulate an inch and a half of droppings in a day. Car paint corrodes under the near-constant fusillade from the birds.

When Western volleyball coach Anna Gibbs began working to bring a nest of Starlings Volleyball Clubs, USA to Baltimore two years ago, she never dreamed she was opening a new career path.Her only goal was that of the Starlings organization: bringing low-cost club volleyball to inner-city girls.As she did that, however, Gibbs launched herself on a course that has taken her to San Diego as the rapidly growing, nationwide Starlings' director of development.When she was first offered the job in July, Gibbs said she felt she could not leave Baltimore and the girls that she has mentored on and off the court.

WASHINGTON -- A composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that has long puzzled musical historians was most likely a tribute to his pet bird, a researcher reported Sunday.The Mozart piece, called "A Musical Joke," is a collection of several passages from the famed composer's other works strung together in an illogical manner with several notes out of tune.The composition makes little sense as a piece of music, but it bears a striking resemblance to the way starlings put together their songs, said Meredith West, an Indiana University psychology professor.

A veil of netting is gradually enveloping Baltimore's downtown circuit courthouses, a response not to tragic national events but to bird droppings so odious they have incited street demonstrations by court employees. For weeks, workmen wearing respirators and rubber gloves have stood in the buckets of 120-foot lifts, disinfecting and then scraping bird refuse off the two Calvert Street buildings' century-old facades with putty knives and wire brushes. After debris is collected, workmen hang bird-proof netting from roofs to the tops of first-floor windows.

When Western volleyball coach Anna Gibbs began working to bring a nest of Starlings Volleyball Clubs, USA to Baltimore two years ago, she never dreamed she was opening a new career path.Her only goal was that of the Starlings organization: bringing low-cost club volleyball to inner-city girls.As she did that, however, Gibbs launched herself on a course that has taken her to San Diego as the rapidly growing, nationwide Starlings' director of development.When she was first offered the job in July, Gibbs said she felt she could not leave Baltimore and the girls that she has mentored on and off the court.