Pigeons and gulls are a common sight on the streets of Boston, and in some public buildings as well. Seeing them isn’t really a surprise, but not seeing them can be.
When you walk in the door or South Station, you enter a cavernous concourse with a dozen or so open train platforms just beyond. Inevitably, busy travelers leave scraps of food on the floor. But rarely will you see any birds other than few small sparrows.
The same is not true at North Station, where you can often find pigeons fighting over the scraps of pizza or donuts they have found.
“I don’t feel harassed,” said my WGBH colleague Annie Shreffler, a frequent commuter from the North Shore. “But there’s never a time when there aren’t pigeons wandering around North Station eating food scraps. I see them flying through the doors to the [outside] tracks all the time.”
So why the difference between the two stations?
Standing on the train platform at South Station, every few minutes you will hear a series of different and unusual bird sounds. At first, you may think they’re real birds, until you look around and don’t see any. The source of the sounds is actually a small speaker on the ceiling.
Joe O'Malley, general manager of South Station, said this device, known as a BIRD-X Repeller, randomly generates sounds and pipes them onto the platform area, with the goal of scaring away other birds.
And it's working, O’Malley said, adding that if the device wasn’t used there would be an influx of pigeons and gulls. This is what he faced two years ago, when he first began managing South Station. He said the station used to be home to a lot of “bird incidents,” as he put it — otherwise known as bird droppings. O’Malley said it wasn’t conducive for people trying to enjoy food while waiting for their trains, so management decided to pursue bird deterrent strategies.
And the little speaker isn't the only device South Station has employed to keep birds to a minimum. O’Malley said they have also installed a more sophisticated sound system inside upper reaches of the terminal that emits pulsing ultrasonic sounds, which humans can’t hear, but birds can’t stand.
Some experts suggest the bird sounds used at South Station can work for only so long. Over time, they say, the pigeons and gulls will get used to the sounds and realize there aren’t actually any birds of prey out to get them. This has happened elsewhere, like at the Cape Cod Mall, which had tried a similar strategy.
“I think they habituate to it,” said Mike O'Connor, the proprietor of the Birdwatchers General Store in Orleans. “They never see the bird of prey, they never see what's causing the distress [sounds] and eventually they just put up with it.”
But O'Malley said they've been successfully using the sonic bird call machine at South Station for two years. The system includes calls of the House Sparrow, the European Starling, the Ring Billed Gull and the Sharp Shinned Hawk.
Together they make a fearsome quartet, keeping South Station gull and pigeon free.
“We love wildlife,” said O’Malley, “just not inside our buildings.”
