Crows strike again
Cars at the carpark opposite Cineleisure Orchard get hit with bird poo by crows
Frankie Chee, Straits Times 13 Sep 08;
Car owners parking their precious set of wheels at Singapore's premier shopping destination hardly expect that they will have to visit a carwash on the way home to blast off bird poo.
Yet that is the prospect faced by those who use the open-air carpark opposite Cineleisure Orchard just off Orchard Road, at the start of Grange Road.
The prime spot in the heart of the upmarket retail district has attracted not just shoppers, but also a flock of crows that roosts in the tree tops at the carpark.
The bothersome birds shower the cars parked below with droppings.
Fed-up motorist Roy Chng, 49, a corporate planner, says: 'It's very unsightly to see bird droppings all over the car, and it's not easy to clean, especially the next day when they have hardened. It's also unhealthy.'
When Life! visited the carpark on Tuesday evening, the ground was littered with dried droppings.
Among the 50 or so cars parked there, only a handful were spared. Some of them were so heavily hit that they looked like a machine gun had splattered them.
Transport company owner Wong Kwong Wai, 51, said as he wiped the unsightly specks off his mini-bus: 'Ten out of 10 cars will get it, and I always end up with more than 10 spots all over my vehicle.'
Looking up at the black birds chattering among the trees, he added: 'I think I'm going to drive off now. If I continue to park here, sure kena (get hit) again.'
Considering how damaging bird poo can be to car paintwork, that might be a wise thing for Mr Wong to do.
According to car paintwork specialists, the birds' business can seep into the paint and damage a car beyond repair.
'Some bird droppings can be so acidic they can eat through the top layer of the polish and the paintcoat and can't be removed,' said Mr Tan Thiam Yong, 36, owner of Groomworks Services, a car paint protection and detailing centre.
It could cost anywhere from about $15 for a polishing to hundreds of dollars to respray the damaged spot.
The crows at the troubled carpark seem to have moved there only earlier this year.
They are believed to have 'migrated' from a nearby carpark in front of the Somerset MRT station exit, after being disturbed when developments to turn the area into a shopping mall began.
'Previously, we had observed crows and mynahs roosting in the trees in front of the Somerset MRT exit. With the recent construction activities they have moved away, presumably to roosting sites on other trees in the vicinity,' says a spokesman for the National Environment Agency (NEA).
It was hard to tell how many crows have set up home at the carpark during Life!'s visit, but their cawing was deafening and endless.
Helpless car owners are also cawing - in complaint, that is.
A Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) spokesman said: 'We have received feedback, and have been pruning the trees in the carpark regularly to minimise the roosting of birds.
'We also carry out regular washing of the carpark to clear the droppings.'
The spokesman added that the URA, which manages the carpark, does not encounter similar situations at its other carparks.
NEA is also doing its part to deal with the feathered fiends.
It says: '(The carpark) is one of the locations covered under NEA's crow culling programme which entails the culling of crows at their foraging, nesting and roosting sites'.
More than 200,000 crows have been culled islandwide since 2002, it said. The present estimated crow population is slightly more than 10,000.
Experts are puzzled why the birds have chosen to flock to the strategic spot in the middle of town.
The NEA says: 'The choice of crow roosts depends on a variety of factors such as availability of shelter from the weather, the type of trees and their height.'
What is certain is that the birds leave their mark wherever they choose to roost.
'Every day, I see motorists cleaning their cars. Even pedestrians like me have been hit, too,' says Mr Sabli Nauti, 24, who works as a cleaner at Orchard Building and goes to the carpark for a break every day.
As if to prove him right, the 30-minute visit by Life! resulted in a bird-bombed car and a 15-minute cleaning job.
