Birds in the Minnesota city of Gilbert appear to be racking up quite the bar bill. Residents have been complaining of birds smashing into houses and windshields and otherwise acting strangely. The reason? They're drunk. Via: Shared.com
In the post, the police is asking residents to remain calm.
"Many birds have not migrated south, so it appears to be more prevalent than in past years," he told ABC News. "Younger birds' livers cannot handle the toxins as efficiently as more mature birds."
"Oh my goodness....I was going to say something...but I thought I was crazy!!! This has been happening to me!" one resident wrote on the Facebook post. "That explains all the birds bouncing off my window lately!" chimed in another.
Yes, said Anna Pidgeon, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin's Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, who notes it's not a rare phenomenon. "It's more typical in late winter, early spring when berries that have been on branches ferment due to the yeast that's on them," she told ABC News . Robins and cedar waxwings rely primarily on fruit and are more susceptible to "getting drunk," said Pidgeon. (Yes, that's really her name.) Getting intoxicated can be quite dangerous for them, she said. "(They) lose their coordination, they lose their natural ability to escape predators -- including poor judgment when it comes to flying." The birds can also get alcohol poisoning.
But Laura Erickson, author of the "National Geographic Pocket Guide to Birds of North America," said most of what people are seeing in northern Minnesota are not drunk birds at all. She said she's gotten hundreds of calls and emails from people who say they've seen birds running into cars and homes. But none of those birds, Erickson said, has been the fruit-eating kind. Instead, she said, they're yellow-rumped warblers and sparrows migrating through Minnesota. So far this fall the state is seeing an especially heavy flow of birds passing through, flying closer to the ground in search of food, she said.
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