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Brighton's abandoned pier facilitates a spectacular murmuration. This is a simple idea: to build a series of similar gantries for birds to use as night roosts, and facilitate the generation of more murmurations.
The metal girders for these can be harvested from buildings being torn down anyway, and
usually release a lot of metal that's otherwise melted down because it's too damaged to safely reuse in a load bearing mode. In the case of the Murmuration Gantries, the framework only has to be strong enough to support its own weight safely. Competitions could be run to determine the most creative structures, and apprenticeships offered to enable the constructions to be realised.
see link for the one at Brighton
Brighton Pier Murmuration
https://www.youtube...watch?v=TLcQ6cjqnl4
[xenzag, Jan 26 2021]
5-10_25_20Barn_20On_20Two_20Pylons
[xenzag, Jan 26 2021]
reduced version for crows (courtesy of the great Alfred)
https://nofilmschoo...ms-alfred-hitchcock
[xenzag, Jan 26 2021]
The insatiable appetite of the saltwater crocodile
https://en.m.wikipe...le_of_Ramree_Island
[xenzag, Jan 26 2021]
Bunsen Bob
https://en.wikipedi.../wiki/Robert_Bunsen
He walks among us. [whatrock, Jan 28 2021]
The List
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMVPXmaKds
[xenzag, Jan 28 2021]
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//In the case of the Murmuration Gantries, the framework
only has to be strong enough to support its own weight
safely// - one that was just strong enough to support its
own weight, but not the additional weight of roosting
starlings would be interesting |
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Yes - I already posted an idea for barn extensions to facilitate bats and owls (link) |
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Bats & owls good, starlings and pigeons not good. |
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Maybe the one for starlings and/or pigeons could be combined with a miniature rifle range ? |
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[+] for luring vermin into a predictable place so they can be more easily exterminated. |
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Can you make a murmuration gantry for politicians and journalists ? With a fullbore rifle range ? |
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Starlings are not vermin. Politicians I have no time for, except when they are being used as live clay pigeons, and launched as live targets near a mangrove swamp filled with saltwater crocodiles to mop up the remains. |
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// Starlings are not vermin. // |
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What are starlings used for ? |
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//launched as live targets near a mangrove swamp // |
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Steel shot, of course; lead shot is toxic to crocodiles. |
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// launched as live targets // |
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How best to launch politicians? Singly or en masse? One might
simply coax them to run, briefcases in hand, across a long dock.
Survivors can then be coaxed to run back. |
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Bun for the oddest title I've seen all week... |
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//coax them to run, briefcases in hand // -Nah -
the crocs are the answer - read how they
munched their way through 1,000 Japanese
soldiers after the British army drove them into a
mangrove in WW2. [link] It's a horror story but the
crocodiles were happy. |
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We don't see anything horrible about japs getting eaten by crocs. |
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// How best to launch politicians? // |
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A task that cries out for a well-designed trebuchet ... |
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// Singly or en masse? // |
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Singly; one target, many shooters. |
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// One might simply coax them to run, briefcases in hand, across a long dock. Survivors can then be coaxed to run back. // |
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Coaxed how, exactly ? Bursts of full-auto, or single aimed shots ? Will the competitors be allowed tracer ? |
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Once directions have been issued for the extermination of
politicians, and those directions carried out, in what sense is
the person issuing those directions not, himself, a politician? |
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It's like the French revolution....Once it's
underway, those that started it end up under the
guillotine themselves. Meanwhile the starlings
murmurate, the bats cauldron and the crows
murder. |
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//It's like the French revolution/ |
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Ah, now there's your problem. You see, if you take the
French Revolution as your paradigm, you should note that
only one important figure survived the entire revolutionary
cycle unscathed (Monarchy - Committee of Public Safety -
Directory - Consulate - Empire - Restored Monarchy - 100
Days - Re-restored Monarchy), and that was the Prince de
Talleyrand, and he was the most weaselly, unscrupulous,
self-regarding politician of the whole lot. |
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From this we learn that trying to clean up your nation by
mass executions is like trying to keep flies off your
collection of priceless illuminated manuscripts and delicate
antique porcelain by means of fuel-air explosives, thermite
and chainsaws. |
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Murmuration seems to be a classic example of macro-level
behaviour emerging from individuals' micro-level behaviour.
So individual starlings are following simple rules, like
keeping roughly the same distance from a small number of
other starlings and this behaviour from thousands of
starlings creates the murmuration patterns we see. Thus,
those compression waves of traffic on a motorway (that
actually travel backwards down the motorway) are also
murmurations. |
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Given the accumulating chorus of complaints from
drivers, I would have thought "mutteration" was a
more appropriate collective name descriptor. |
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I think murmurations and traffic flow are different mathematicaly. Philip Ball discusses this in his book 'Critical Mass'. Bird flocking is discussed on p. 151-6, and traffic flow has an entire chapter 7, p. 193-219. The book was published in 2004 so I'm sure its a bit dated now but it is really excellent and I haven't seen anything more recent that discusses all this stuff. |
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We used to have an enormous problem with starlings in Brighton. They were a real pest & the whole town was covered in bird shit. Then the 1987 Hurricane happened & they were almost completely annihilated overnight. Literally.
I love watching them in flight but, trust me, it's no fun living below them!
On the other hand, the West Pier has been a complete farce for decades. Gradually decaying into a total eyesore. Then it caught fire* a couple of times & a few bits fell off during storms. Then the starlings came back to live there and one of the city's problems became the saviour of another!
* Actually, it was set alight if the truth be known. |
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//it was set alight// - nice use of the passive voice there [Dr
“Matches” Bob] |
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There's a long tradition of trade names being
connected to "Bobs", "Bob the builder" being the
most widely known, but now we find that there is
a possible "Bob the burner" |
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//Politicians I have no time for, except when they are being
used as live clay pigeons, and launched as live targets near a
mangrove swamp filled with saltwater crocodiles to mop up
the remains.// |
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That's one hell of a change of heart, xenzag. |
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? Show me where I've ever shown any time for
politicians? My loathing of them is well known and
often demonstrated in many forms. Grrrrrrrrrr |
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//Dr “Matches” Bob//
What is your name? "hippo"? You will also go on the list! |
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The List! Gulp. Glad I'm not on that. No one knows
I'm called Pike. |
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// nice use of the passive voice there [Dr “Matches” Bob] // |
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Yes, we noticed that, too. Very suspicious; it could mean that he's an arsonist (paid or unpaid), a pyromaniac (A real, diagnose (DSM) medical condition, more deserving of pity than condemnation. Please.) or worse than either, a civil servant or lawyer ... |
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//? Show me where I've ever shown any time for politicians? My loathing of them is well known and often
demonstrated in many forms. Grrrrrrrrr// |
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Exhibit A : Frag the election
Which observed that the UK election system was open to a denial of service attack: dedicated members of a
party could block 'safe' seats of their opponent for long enough to affect election of the prime minister, by
standing in the constituency, then dying before voting day through natural causes or suicide. |
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I'm not sure you actually read the idea, but nevertheless your contribution to the discussion was pretty
insistent. |
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//As I have pointed out, a politician has already been murdered in the UK, so your 'idea' is in poor taste.//
(xenzag, on "Frag the election") |
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//poor taste// Not enough salt perhaps? |
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No, very poor preparation technique; politicians should be roasted very slowly over a small wood fire, while still alive (which demands great skill and care in inserting the spit, so as to avoid inflicting immediately lethal injury). |
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If you just want them for show, though, and are happy with baked potatoes cooked in the embers, then the traditional Wicker Man is more entertaining. |
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Murmuration.
That's a funny word. hmmmm no etymological dictionary hit. I wondered what it had to do with the word Murmurate. |
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"Murmurate - you either love it or you hate it" ? |
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He was a descendant of the Clampetts, but invented a sort of glue, so then the clamps weren't needed any more... after which they disowned him, because they reckoned he was a bit stuck up ... |
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//Multiple online sources claim it's late Middle English// |
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huh... I never thought to look further than the etymological dictionary.
<begins repeatedly smacking side of head>
Stupid... stupid... stupid |
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Which begs the question; do murmurmaids murmurate as a group? and if so would it be considered a murmuration? |
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// <begins repeatedly smacking side of head> Stupid... stupid... stupid // |
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Now now, there's absolutely no need for you to do that... after all, it's a trivial mistake that anyone could make. Just calm down, take deep breaths... that's it. |
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<Shouts "STUPID ! STUPID ! STUPID !" while repeatedly smacking [2fries] on side of head/> |
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There you are, isn't that better ? |
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Unfortunately others lost the ability to torture me quite some time ago and now I am forced to self flagellate. |
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Sad I know, but there you have it. I appreciate the effort though. It shows you care. |
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