You’ve just arrived in town for the Super Bowl, and you step out of your hotel room to go and explore the area. Warning: If you hear this … run! Run for your lives!
The birds pictured below are called grackles, ornery cousins of the blackbird who stand in as the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington version of the pigeon. Mostly a problem in downtown Fort Worth, where they take up residence from September through May, they make the city noisy and dirty, and occasionally dangerous. Think grackles are something to laugh at? Many men have thought that, and many men have been viciously pecked.
Fort Worth officials are insisting that the birds won’t be a problem, but the main weapon in scaring them off — the propane cannon — may itself be troublesome. Those things are noisy as well. From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
The birds, of course, are not part of the picture city leaders hope to paint when the Super Bowl festivities and ESPN’s worldwide audience arrive on Monday.
And neither is the propane cannon that city workers use to scare them off, lest anyone in the ESPN audience think downtown is under attack.
“We need to do it quietly for the week that ESPN is here broadcasting,” said George Kruzick, a superintendent of the Fort Worth parks department.
From Friday through Feb. 7, the city will use only laser lights to scare off the birds, which once flocked downtown in the thousands to roost because of the ample trees and food.
“It’s the tool of choice if you’re trying to be quiet,” Kruzick said. “By shining the light on their eyes, they tend to take off.”
But I am told by those in the know that lights don’t always work, particularly in the daytime. I feel an epic battle about to be fought for the streets of Fort Worth, and perhaps the very soul of Super Bowl XLV itself. Stay tuned.
Perhaps, like Kent Brockman, we should simply welcome our new grackle overlords.
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Fort Worth works to keep grackles away from Super Bowl visitors [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]
