Funny stuff... From ABC News/Good Morning America comes this story:
N.Y. Woodpecker Thinks Reflection Is Enemy
In Upstate New York, Mirrors Not Safe Around Woodpecker Who Thinks Reflection Is an Enemy
Car owners around town are covering their mirrors in an attempt to outsmart a woodpecker who apparently thinks his reflection is an enemy.
Tim Taylor, who owns Thruway Auto Glass, said he replaced 30 smashed mirrors last year and 18 this year because of the bird, which has claimed this area east of Syracuse as his territory.
"People come in pretty mad. One guy's been in here three times already because he keeps forgetting to cover up the mirrors," Taylor said.
During breeding season, male woodpeckers aggressively defend their turf, even against imaginary foes, said bird-watcher Benjamin Burtt.
Anne Miller has had two mirrors on her Pontiac Grand Prix smashed and watched the bird attack her neighbor's Malibu.
"I told him to shoo. He did. Then he came right back and finished the job," she said. "Instead of flying off, he walked across the windshield and did the passenger mirror. I was flabbergasted."
Heh... I used to live in Boston and that area was the precursor of Silicon Valley when mainframe computers walked the earth.
It was also the center of the previous generation of high-tech -- the machinery for large fabric and paper mills were made in that area. A lot of small business sprang up providing ancillary services to these manufacturers. Tool and Die and Machine Shops were very common.
There was this one large Machine Shop north of Boston (near Gloucester) that had large skylights in their roof (as did many factories of that time -- these buildings were originally built during the 40's and 50's). They started dumping all of their scrap metal bits outside the factory in a large pile. All of a sudden, their skylights started breaking. They finally pieced it together and what was happening was that Sea Gulls were picking up pieces from their junk pile and flying up with them. The Gulls thought these were crabs or shellfish. The way Gulls deal with shellfish is they carry them up a hundred feet or so and drop them onto a hard surface, dive down and eat the critter through the remains of the broken shell. Unfortunately for the Machine Shop, these Gulls were dropping the scrap onto the glass of the skylights. The scrap pile was moved under cover and the skylight problem stopped...
