Bird Houses

[mjarrels]

Small local town (Bridgewater Va.) just built 8 bird houses for $2000.00! Tax dollars at work!

mark

 

[jinman]

Small local town (Bridgewater Va.) just built 8 bird houses for $2000.00! Tax dollars at work!

mark

...and the birds won't take care of them. They'll move in, and within a year, they'll have poop everywhere.

 

[EddieWalker]

It always amazes me how people get those jobs. I'd be embarassed to charge $2,000 for bird houses. Heck, I could buy them from a high dollar store and spend top dollar for them and install them in an hour or two for half of what they were charged.

The city that I was born in hired an artist from Michigan to design and build them a work of art for the entrance into the city. It's in the SF Bay Area and all the cities are right next to each other. If you blink, you might miss the sign that says what city you are in, otherwise, it's all the same. They did some landscaping on a center island and then istalled the "artwork."

The bay area is allot of things, but Native American it is not. This artis created a canoe our of pipe and some flat stock, then painted it yellow and purple for some unknown reason. It was so ugly that it became the topic on the local news, radio shows and newspapers. Nobody had an answer to why they put a Native America style canoe out there for the entrance. The town has some rodeo heritage and was part of the Spanish Land Grants in the early years. There is all sorts of history there, but none of it has anything to do with the Indians. Especially purple and yellow canoes!!!! hahaha

Then it finally came out that they paid the artist $100,000 for this piece of "art." I don't remember all the details, but the artist was interviewed and she said why she chose the canoe, but it wasn't relavant, it was ugly and people were upset at what it cost. Very shortly after the price of it came out, it disapeared. The city said they were working with the artist to get the money back for it, but I don't know or remember if they did or not.

At least they only spent $2,000 on the bird houses, it could have been allot worse!!!

Eddie

 

[Western]

Sounds like the Mayors "brother/buddie" did very well!!!

 

[tallyho8]

Sounds like what happened here a while back. Councilman asks the council to approve a $70,000 fund to improve living conditions for some poor families. It was approved. It seems the money went to fix up an apartment complex that the "poor people" lived in that was owned by the councilman.

He never even got reprimanded!

 

[300UGUY]

I googled it, and the birdhouses are part of a effort to eradicate the west nile virus, which has killed people here in Michigan. It also kills horses. These are for purple martin houses, and I have seen some for sale that hold 50+ birds. These birds live in groups. A bird house that big, is gonna cost some $$$. This is a attempt to use biological controls rather than pesticides. And 2K isn't gonna buy a whole lot of pesticides these days. Doesn't sound that bad to me.

 

[czechsonofagun]

It always amazes me how people get those jobs. I'd be embarassed to charge $2,000 for bird houses. Heck, I could buy them from a high dollar store and spend top dollar for them and install them in an hour or two for half of what they were charged.

The city that I was born in hired an artist from Michigan to design and build them a work of art for the entrance into the city. It's in the SF Bay Area and all the cities are right next to each other. If you blink, you might miss the sign that says what city you are in, otherwise, it's all the same. They did some landscaping on a center island and then istalled the "artwork."


Eddie

LOL. I would take ugly canoe anytime; when I was growing up, we had statues of Lenin, Marx and similar bastards in every town together with signs who we love, why and for how long (With the Soviet union for ever and ever for instance)

 

[EddieWalker]

I googled it, and the birdhouses are part of a effort to eradicate the west nile virus, which has killed people here in Michigan. It also kills horses. These are for purple martin houses, and I have seen some for sale that hold 50+ birds. These birds live in groups. A bird house that big, is gonna cost some $$$. This is a attempt to use biological controls rather than pesticides. And 2K isn't gonna buy a whole lot of pesticides these days. Doesn't sound that bad to me.

Knowing this and how expensive those big purple martin houses are, I can see where the money went and will admit that it's not as wasteful and I first thought it was. Of course, Pat G made a very good point in another thread awhile ago, that purple martins don't actually eat very many, if any, misquitos. It's just one of those myths that people have come to believe and until it was studied, nobody doubted.

If you really want to get rid of misquitos, you need bats!!!!! They should have spent $2,000 on bat houses. For that much money, they could have bought quite a few of them and probably made a dent in the mosquito population. I know that I love to see the bats flying around my ponds in the evening!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[tallyho8]

I googled it, and the birdhouses are part of a effort to eradicate the west nile virus, which has killed people here in Michigan. It also kills horses. These are for purple martin houses, and I have seen some for sale that hold 50+ birds. These birds live in groups. A bird house that big, is gonna cost some $$$. This is a attempt to use biological controls rather than pesticides. And 2K isn't gonna buy a whole lot of pesticides these days. Doesn't sound that bad to me.

They would do a lot better with bat houses as purple martins eat the mosquito hawks that eat the mosquitoes and can actually increase the mosquito population.

 

[300UGUY]

i don't know much about Purple Martins, but since the Moskitoes seem to be more common at night, bats are probably better. I am thinking about some bat houses, but I don't know much about them.