AUBURN - At 5 in the morning, a group of city employees hunt for one of the few creatures to be found downtown at that time of day - the crows.
Sam Tenney / The Citizen
Tim Clark aims a red laser beam toward a group of trees in an effort to flush out crows before sunrise on Wednesday morning.
Tim Clark aims a red laser beam toward a group of trees in an effort to flush out crows before sunrise on Wednesday morning.
Instead of a shotgun, Tim Clark uses a laser gun to blast beams of red light into the tree line. Clark is one of a group of Auburn employees who participates in the crow-hazing program. Starting at 3 or 4 a.m. and running until morning light, they drive to different places throughout the city, trying to make life uncomfortable for the city's winged inhabitants.
The crow-hazing program started last week and will last for less than two weeks.
Workers travel in pairs, one driving with the other on the lookout or using tools to drive out the birds. Six employees in three trucks break the city into sections: a central zone for downtown, the portion east of North and South streets, and the area west of the main streets.
Clark is a maintenance mechanic for the wastewater treatment plant, but was approached to train for the program because of his love for the outdoors.
Driving around in city-owned white Dodge 4x4s, the men scope out the treetops for their feathered adversary.
They have a few methods they use to make life uncomfortable for crows, including distress calls, the laser, and two types of pyrotechnics shot from a starter pistol. They rotate techniques so birds don't get use to anything one method.
However, the crows are getting used to the white trucks the hazing crews drive, Clark said. According to him, the birds are intelligent and sometimes fly off as they see employees stop but before they can use any tools.
This is the third year Clark is participating in the hazing program.
In 2005, the federal Department of Agriculture trained a group of city employees on the technique. Before its biologists came, Auburn employees put up large balloons in trees and broadcast distressed calls from a specific location.
Clark wouldn't venture a guess why the crows are attracted to Auburn, but said they like to be by the Owasco River. An inch of bird droppings coated the railing across from the downtown police and fire station the first year, Clark said. Similar complaints about sidewalks and yards come from business owners, especially in the city center.
“We just spent all that money to beautify downtown. Sure want to keep it clean, don't we,” Clark asked.
As Clark fired the fireworks into the air at Market Street Park, a woman stopped to ask if he was crow hazing. The city should leave them alone because they are a natural phenomenon, she said. That was the first time someone stopped to talk to Clark this year, but in past years, most people tell the employees they are grateful for the city's effort to displace the crows, he said.
“It seems to be working this year, that's for sure,” Clark said. The numbers have gone down as the program has continued. The number of crows outside a grocery store made so much noise a couple weeks ago he couldn't hear his daughter in the parking lot.
“You'll never get rid of everything, and no one wants that, we just need to get a handle on the problem,” Clark said.
Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net
The crow-hazing program started last week and will last for less than two weeks.
Workers travel in pairs, one driving with the other on the lookout or using tools to drive out the birds. Six employees in three trucks break the city into sections: a central zone for downtown, the portion east of North and South streets, and the area west of the main streets.
Clark is a maintenance mechanic for the wastewater treatment plant, but was approached to train for the program because of his love for the outdoors.
Driving around in city-owned white Dodge 4x4s, the men scope out the treetops for their feathered adversary.
They have a few methods they use to make life uncomfortable for crows, including distress calls, the laser, and two types of pyrotechnics shot from a starter pistol. They rotate techniques so birds don't get use to anything one method.
However, the crows are getting used to the white trucks the hazing crews drive, Clark said. According to him, the birds are intelligent and sometimes fly off as they see employees stop but before they can use any tools.
This is the third year Clark is participating in the hazing program.
In 2005, the federal Department of Agriculture trained a group of city employees on the technique. Before its biologists came, Auburn employees put up large balloons in trees and broadcast distressed calls from a specific location.
Clark wouldn't venture a guess why the crows are attracted to Auburn, but said they like to be by the Owasco River. An inch of bird droppings coated the railing across from the downtown police and fire station the first year, Clark said. Similar complaints about sidewalks and yards come from business owners, especially in the city center.
“We just spent all that money to beautify downtown. Sure want to keep it clean, don't we,” Clark asked.
As Clark fired the fireworks into the air at Market Street Park, a woman stopped to ask if he was crow hazing. The city should leave them alone because they are a natural phenomenon, she said. That was the first time someone stopped to talk to Clark this year, but in past years, most people tell the employees they are grateful for the city's effort to displace the crows, he said.
“It seems to be working this year, that's for sure,” Clark said. The numbers have gone down as the program has continued. The number of crows outside a grocery store made so much noise a couple weeks ago he couldn't hear his daughter in the parking lot.
“You'll never get rid of everything, and no one wants that, we just need to get a handle on the problem,” Clark said.
Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net
