Dateline Clifton: It's for the birds

Two Clifton residents and their neighbors are having to deal with a very messy and loud situation featuring hundreds of blackbirds spending all night squawking and pooping in their front yard. Tony and Terry Pekarsky say the birds arrive in their big maple tree out front around 7:30 pm and after screeching all night and painting the yard, driveway and sidewalk with 'bird art' they leave at 5 am the next morning. They have tried the usual remedies, motion detecting fake owls, hanging CD's from branches but to no avail. Part of their daily routine now is hosing down the sidewalk, yard and driveway.

Thus far there seems to be so solution (that doesn't involve guns or pyrotechnics). Maybe Johnny can help. Growing up he had a similar situation with a giant pine tree in his front yard. Hundreds and hundreds of penguins would sit in the 50 foot pine tree and go crazy. You couldn't sleep most nights. Penguin poop everywhere the next morning. Johnny's dad, Russ Fix-it Action Space Dude came up with a solution that may well work for the Pekarsky's. He greased all the perching branches with bacon grease. Once the penguins couldn't get up in the higher branches and they all had to stand at the bottom of the tree they were easy to round up and sell to pet stores. Now maybe blackbirds don't fetch what penguins do at pet stores but it's a nice beginning that also could put some coin in the Pekarsky's pockets for their trouble.