Rome scares off its starlings

These birds are flying to Italy from the north of Europe. In winter, the weather's warm in Italy.

Eva Osuna is a tourist from Spain.

Eva Osuna: "It's beautiful, it's very beautiful. It's the first time I've seen it. I had heard about it, but it's the first time I've seen it."

The bird 'dances' are beautiful to watch. But the birds, called starlings, bring problems.

Large groups of the birds sit in the trees. Their poo falls on the city streets. It smells bad too.

On nice, sunny days, you can see Romans with umbrellas. Local people want to stay clean.

A group called Fauna Urbis has to move the birds. They use noise and lights. This divides the birds into small groups.

Valentina De Tommaso: "We act on their fear reflex, by using their own alarm call so that they move to less populated places. Because their presence on the trees makes cars dirty, the ground dirty, disturbs passers-by, not to mention the noise that they make."

This noise isn't a problem for the birds. It only tells them the place is dangerous. They should fly away.

The work isn't easy. There are about one million starlings in Rome this year. People have different ideas about them.

Francesco Fusco lives there. He understands.

Francesco Fusco: "Walking under a tree where there are starlings is not ideal, and it can cause problems. But indeed, if the city is a reference point for these birds, because it is a stop on their migration route, then they have the right to stop here." Weniger anzeigen