I don't know what kinds of birds there are down under. Most of our birds are those small things that are a couple inches tall and tweet. They eat berries and leave small runny droppings that stain things. And they have a talent for leaving droppings on large windows that are shaded by deep roof overhangs, which makes you think they can hover with their behinds pressed against the glass because they could not possibly attain a high enough horizontal speed to hit the glass with their droppings without hitting the building and dying.

For years, I have been finding droppings on my cars that defy explanation. BIG droppings. Well beyond the volume that could possibly be carried by one of these small birds. Droppings that would be easily double the weight of a normal sized bird. No bird could possibly excrete such a volume and survive. I was looking for winged elephants. The only other explanation might be that someone might be holding a bird over the car and squeezing the insides of them out onto the car.

Well, the mystery is solved. I looked outside this morning and found a red tailed hawk perched on my car. Several have moved into the area, but they are only seen in one of three places:
1. Circling in the air while looking for something to kill.
2. Perched on a tall tree while looking for something to kill.
3. On top of an animal on the ground, killing it.

I've never seen one on a car. That thing is 15 inches (38 cm) tall. Probably a 26 inch (66 cm) wing span. Not even full grown. And a flying bundle of razor sharp claws and beak.

Maybe I should feel lucky that I am not finding fur or bones in the droppings left on my cars.

Nice pic of a nice bird, JT. Though the crapping is a problem, it provides a good excuse to give your car some cleaning love!
I like birds of prey, in our area they reduce the number of introduced garden wrecking & native bird killing hoards like Sparrows, Indian Mynors & Blackbirds. We have (size order, sm to lg) Kestrals, Brown Falcons, Kites, and Wedge Tailed Eagles in our area. The latter are pretty big, I remember stopping for one that was attempting to remove a road kill Kangaroo from the road ahead. It was making a pretty good go of it & had it a foot off the ground, but released it when we startled it. Truely awesome! I'm talking 25kg/60 odd pounds. (Not an Aussie/Texan type exaggeration)
We did once have a problem with Falcons taking chooks (chickens), so we got some pidgeons. These sat on the roof of the house & were easier pickings, so saved the chooks. Pidgeons breed year round & so kept ahead of the Falcon so much that we had to start eating them too. (Surprisingly nice, like chicken crossed with lambs fry.[liver])

I guess your not finding bones 'cause that beak is pretty strong & crunches 'em up. Don't put your finger in there!

Thankfully, a Wedgie has never crapped on my car.
Cheers, Matt.

Reminds me of a time one of my former flatmates had his car pooped on by a Pelican while driving over the "Houghton Hway"(2.4km bridge between Brissy & Redcliffe)
I thought he had hit a fish flavoured yogurt truck on his way home!
There must have been about a litre of fermented fish jiblets on the bonnet, windscreen and roof.
About half of which went down into the cowl airvents. Could not get it all out!!
His car stank of rotten fish guts for the whole summer and every time it rained it would steam the smell back through the car again.
I refused to let him park the car in the driveway for three months as it was under my bedroom window.

Needless to say I became the designated driver for months because no one would ride in his car.

Nothing wrong with eating pidgeons Matt
'Squeeky' pidgeons are delicious with a little fried onion bacon and garlic.

Squeeky as in 'Crested' pidgeon...... they go squeek, squeek, squeek, squeek as they take off.
A little bit like Quail only better because they are mostly grain eaters unlike Quail that eat mustly grubs and bugs.

I wish i could photo chop i have a image that i could send to jt it would require a photo of a bellett ,emu and a large t1rd
This is not intended as a personal attack jt just a wacked sense of humour,but if you don't know what a emu is they are a bird that stands 5 ft tall in aus.

Yep GTorph, 5 ft and taller. And have tirds the size of cow patts

I used to have a few close encounters with large Wedge Tail Eagles in the lower Flinders, Matt. A truly magnificent bird of prey.

btw, how is it that birds in general manage to single out clean and polished cars, and POOP ALL OVER THEM !?! I think city spoggies are cleverer than we think and have a warped sense of humour

B.

JT191 = CSI: Avian Unit

We have acid fermenting Fruit Bats up here in sunny Darwin - not only do they leave behind a perfectly aimed trail of black crud - it EATS the paint AND the steel underneath - so much so as you cannot paint it again without some serious paint prep.......
also they can hit a Glass Pool fence from a mile up (actually they just offload as they take off from hanging upside down in a palm tree) and the reason they crap in the air is because they don't want to lose any fur from crapping on themselves while in the tree