r/Ornithology • u/diseguisedrobot • 22h ago
Are these bird droppings and how to keep these birds away?
My gramma has been getting these daily on her 4th floor balcony latelly . Any help Will be welcome, thank you
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u/wikigreenwood82 22h ago
doesnt look like any bird poop Ive seen... more like kibble or something. Bird poop has a dark chunk surrounded by white splashes (which is their urine)
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u/666afternoon 22h ago
if this is poop, it's probably mammalian.
here's how you tell - see the small white ones? those are definitely from small birds. birds and reptiles don't have liquid pee like us, instead they excrete solid urea. that's the white stuff, basically pee.
on top of that, they typically don't drop solid brown nuggets like that - that's generally a mammal thing. [tldr: birds have less blood than us due to flight adaptation; we excrete waste blood cells & our poop is that color for that reason; we also poop less frequently, so each one is heavier]
LMAO sorry for the poo info dump but hopefully it helps - my guess is you've got a critter of some kind
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u/theberg512 16h ago
Tbh, it looks a lot like rabbit poop, but not sure how it'd get on the balcony.
It also looks exactly like my dog's kibble. That seems more likely if there are upstairs neighbors.
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u/666afternoon 15h ago
yes, I'm not sure it's even poo tbh! it definitely could be hard kibbles from somewhere
amazing how this post brought out all my experience working with animals & caring for their health, but in the form of ~poo wisdom~ 😂
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u/PomegranateBubbly900 22h ago
Dog or cat one floor above throwing their food around
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u/diseguisedrobot 3h ago
No upstair neighbour, this is the top floor of a 4 story building - reason why I was sure it had to be birds.
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u/Refokua 21h ago
Is there a balcony above? It truly looks like kibble--dry cat or dog food--and there could be a pet above that's a messy eater. Alternately, it's definitely not raccoon feces--that looks more like dog. Rabbits leave a sort of raisin-like waste, but not sure rabbits would be up that high. Is there a tree nearby that might be dropping seeds?
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u/diseguisedrobot 3h ago
Top floor on a 4 story building so no trees around and no upstairs neighbour - I was sure it was bird droppings but now I’m aware birds could be stealing kibble from somewhere else and dropping it there
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u/shehoshlntbnmdbabalu 19h ago
Birds stealing kibble perhaps?
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u/diseguisedrobot 3h ago
After going through all the comments, I’d say this is the most likely to be happening
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u/pheebeep 22h ago
The only bird related thing that could possibly be is pellets from a small species of owl, but even then there's too many of them and they're too uniform.
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u/Skyblue_pink 15h ago
Call the landlord. Looks like the upstairs neighbors are tossing uneaten pet food off their balcony. This happened to my MIL. It is a recipe for enticing rodents, plus g-ma shouldn’t have to clean up their mess.
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u/Physical_Buy_9489 17h ago
Someone on the 5th floor is throwing cat food.
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u/diseguisedrobot 3h ago
No 5th floor :/ This is the top floor of a building in a fairly urban area. I was sure it had to be birds
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