Doug Grandt sent the following letter
(response sent from mail@cartalk.com).
Dear Tom and Ray:
RE: Bird Excrement Behavior (caller to 1/18/97 program)
I GOT IT! Bird droppings are white. The car is white. It's a "likes attract" phenomenon. Had the green car been parked near the garbage bin of a Mexican restaurant, it would have been splattered by green guacamole tossed out with other table scraps. Other green stuff would find its way onto the green car, given the right circumstances. Maybe that's not it.
Seriously ... :
There is a very simple answer to the gentleman's question about why birds seem to target his '95 white Acura GSR 4-door whereas they previously seemed to ignore his '94 dark green one, and you were partly on the right track stating that it is an UNCONTROLLED event. That notwithstanding, it is not entirely RANDOM.
Without knowing for sure that there is a tree or bush near the place where he parks, I WOULD WAGER DOLLARS TO DONUTS that there is and that a family of birds took up residence there, coincidentally, some time after he purchased the '95 model.
And the tree or tall shrub need not be directly above the parking space, but near enough that birds' droppings fall according to a mathematically derived parabolic trajectory defined by the velocity of flight, the acceleration of gravity and the time or distance from the nest when the "cargo is unloaded," with variability introduced by the breeze and other natural variables.
Birds typically "lighten their load" when they take flight from their nest. Although they also unload when taking flight from any other perch, that is as random as the abundance of perches. Notice areas where there is an abundance of droppings and you will find a nest or other attractive perch.
Until two years ago, my driveway was littered only with leaves and twigs from the trees in that area of our lot. During the summer of 1995, I began to notice bird excrement regularly on my Honda Accord, which, incidentally, is Bordeaux red. I also noticed that there was a regular pattern of droppings in a six-foot radius where I park the car. Well, a pair of doves had built a nest up in the tree, so out of self-defense I avoid parking the car in that vicinity; so far that has solved the problem.
The critical clues given by the caller are in his two statements that:
- he continued to park the white car in the same place that he parked the dark green car (thus eliminating one variable from the equation); and
- the dark green '94 model was replaced by the white '95 model (this sequence is very critical to the astute BIRD-DROPPING SLEUTH).
Enough already; you must get thousands of stupid audience responses.
Doug Grandt
Summit, NJ
