BIRDS SHITTING upon ye

One hot summer's day as a child, my parents drove the family to Fort McHenry in Baltimore to see the birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner. Shortly after getting out of the car in the parking lot, I felt a hot splash of liquid behind my ear. Reaching back to touch it, I was greeted by a rank and terrible smell. Mom wiped it off with a kleenex and told me it was bird poop.

The smell continued to haunt me through the rest of our extremely tedious, non-air conditioned trip though. "Pay close attention, young peaceman, this is the room where the soldiers all sat on hard, wooden chairs! And in this next room..." I got no relief until I got home and took a shower that night.

As a bird owner who gets pooped on regularly, I realize that the bird must have been sick to release such pungent droppings.

I got my whole head coated by what must've been an owl or owl-sized bird on my way to an early morning meeting at my first real job. I didn't feel like I could skip the meeting, so I just tried to clean up in the bathroom, but they immediately told me to go back home when I walked into the boardroom because the stench was still overpowering. When I got home, I was relaying the horror of the situation to one of my roommates who had just woken up and he was like, "uh sorry, but I'm gonna need to go take a shower ahead of you" and ran into the bathroom, leaving me there to stew in stench for another 20 minutes, what a dick.

I think I've had partial hits a few times, but nothing memorable. (My car, on the other hand ...)

But if it's allowed, I do have a bird-barf story. A low-flying pigeon in Oaxaca came cruising down the sidewalk toward me and somehow got confused and ran head-first into my leg. I saw it coming at me but didn't have time to try to move. The shock of the collision prompted the poor fella to instantly regurgitate whatever was in its belly, so I ended up with pigeon puke all over the shin of my linen trousers. Had to go back to the hotel to change. The bird was stunned and wandered off slowly with uncertain steps. I think it may have been seriously injured.

had a low swooping splodge land on me when I was on a date, never seen someone laugh so hard.

I've made it through most of my life (in London) without being shat on, but I've now been shat on three times in the past six months. I must be doing something wrong. I'm not walking under trees more often than usual.

To be honest having to wash my hair and clothes in the middle of the day because they're covered in shit doesn't feel intrinsically lucky to me

"I really hit the jackpot today!" [continues scrubbing and crying]

I think it's a bit of a 'QI Klaxon' myth that birds don't have a regulatory sphincter and so can't control when they shite but they certainly don't have the *same* control. Which is to say, don't take it personal, like.

I got shat on doing playground duty at school (secondary school teacher), which went down well. Have also been shat on by a buzzard. I know because I looked up and saw the bastard.

Vulture crap is nasty stuff. I had one shit on my window screen once and the stain just seemed to stay there forever.

I never get shit on, but my cars used to. especially my 1993 Geo Metro in high school. it was target practice.

little did I know they were trying to warn me about the car.

Oh yeah, since work from home started in 2020, it's been rough on my car. Used to park all day in a big commuter lot. Acres of concrete with wide open skies and only a few light poles for a bird to perch on. Now the 2007 Fusion sits under the tree outside of my house all day. The past 3 springs it's just been a rain of robin crap. The worst was 2021 because they were just pigging out on cicadas.

Well, the American robin is a member of the genus Turdus!

lol - adding that to latin names I will remember.

a woman got shat on by a seagull in a pub beer garden I was in last Saturday. it hasn't happened to me for years, last time I was on my way to work in the morning and a pigeon crapped down my trouser leg, but luckily I worked near Piccadilly Circus at the time so I popped into somewhere like M&S and bought a pair of trousers and got changed into them at work so I didn't have to go round all day with shit-stained trousers.

turdus maximus har har xp

Unlikely peace, man's Ford would be shat on by the Tibetan blackbird!

Disappointing that Turdus maximus is about the same size as Turdus migratorius.

I've been shat on by a bird twice. The first time was in a bus station, and a bystander remarked that it was lucky. The second time I was sitting in a park in London, whiling away the time before a job interview. The bird shat on the left shoulder of my suit. I remember exactly when it was - it was the same day in 2003 that the England rugby team took a bus around Central London to celebrate their Rugby World Cup win. I still went to the interview but didn't get the job.

Nathan Fielder knows bird poop:

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=228594682773453&_rdr

i been baptised by birdshit a couplefew times, usually the standard blobby white streak on my shirt while walking through a park. one time leaving work there was a mob of starlings in the tree above and i felt this dreadful *plop* right on the top of my head, & had to go back in to have someone examine my crown to determine whether a.) a drop of water had slipped from the crease of a leaf or b.) birdshit and of course it was b.

vultures are great, though. gentle janitors of the avian world. my vague recollection was that maybe they poop in response to threats but a quick google proved that no, they vomit instead, a particularly noisome and acidic vomit (as you would expect of carrion birds) capable of inflicting acid burns. and their legs are often coated white with their own waste; they shit themselves both to cool off in hot weather and to kill harmful bacterial hitchhikers picked up from their food <3

Oh yeah, I have nothing against vultures despite the window incident. The turkey vultures I see in my neighborhood are very chill.

they ought to have a more cuddly name

"stinkypuffs"

no, that sounds like farts

i bet the australians have a good name for vultures, someone get them on the line

Come to think of it there was a third time. A bird shat on the rucksack I was wearing while I was walking along under some trees. A fraction of a second earlier and it would have gone down the back of the neck of my shirt (and I'd have to have gone home, showered, changed my clothes, burnt the shirt, and been very late getting to work).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW792gNjyw0

this thread may have been the best thing that happened in my life today 🙏

Our neighbor used to have a thick stand of bamboo which birds turned into a condo complex; we used to park our car right next to said bamboo stand, which meant our car was regularly coated in birdshit. (Small, non-carnivorous birds, mercifully.) Eventually, we bought one of those high-pitched-noise-emitting machines and stuck it on a pole between the car and the bamboo, and the bird population thinned out considerably. A year or so later, the neighbors cut down the bamboo. Problem solved. Now the problem is the feral cats that sleep underneath our car (we don't drive it much) and generally occupy the building's parking lot. I've only ever run over one cat, but that was plenty.

Highschool typing class was in a long narrow room, I sat at the back farthest from the teacher.
One summer day jumped out the (ground floor) window with a friend, hung around outside for a while, then snuck back in unnoticed... thought we were pretty slick...
Teacher strolled over asked where we'd been, friend (thinking quickly) said just out to the washroom...
Teacher asked if there were seagulls in the washroom... friend and I confused... turns out he had a large birdyturd all down the back of his shirt...