Birds put into the drunk tank to sober up

November 18, 2014 • 3:28 pm

From the CBC we learn that animal lovers are helping out our feathered friends by setting up drunk tanks for birds who overindulge. It turns out that Bohemian waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus; see below) have a tendency to gobble mountain ash berries, which ferment after they freeze and defrost. That gets the birds more than a bit tipsy. As the CBC notes:

“What happens around this time of year is that after the frost, the berries will ferment and so the birds actually can get a little intoxicated from eating these berries and they do in fact get drunk,” said Meghan Larivee with the animal health unit at Environment Yukon.

Tipsy birds have a harder time controlling their flight movements, and like people, their co-ordination under the influence is wonky. It can even be deadly.

“So they’re flying around but they’re not as good at avoiding obstacles,” Larivee said. “Hitting windows is not uncommon.”

Here’s one of those lovely birds about to tie one on:

bohemian-waxwing
A Bohemian waxwing eats berries in Whitehorse. As berries are starting to ferment following a frost, Environment Yukon is asking people to bring birds they find drunk or unconscious to its animal health unit near the Whitehorse airport so they can sober up safely. (Keith Williams)

And here’s the CBC video showing how they take care of birds who are three sheets to the wind. Sadly, no drunken birds are shown:

Somehow I sense that this post will inspire puns. . . .

h/t: Taskin

44 thoughts on “Birds put into the drunk tank to sober up”

  3. The little birds are wandering the streets of Whitehorse saying, “I love you man” to passers-by then looking for a kebab place to eat. 😀

    Two questions: where can I find these berries & can I eat them without dying? 🙂

    1. I don’t know where you would find them, but I would be cautious about consuming them. They are also known as Rowan berries, and turn up in old herbals. They were used in teas and extracts to treat diarrhoea, piles, and scurvy. But the seeds and leaves are rich in cyanogenic glycosides, and eating the raw pulp of the fruit can cause vomiting. But there are recipes available for rowan berry jams and wines. I tried the wine once, it was horribly bitter.

    1. Never heard of the drunk tank? I guess that means you’ve never heard Fairytale of New York by The Pogues. It is one of the greatest New York songs, Christmas songs, and Irish ballads of all time.

      1. Yes, I know what a drunk tank is…just being flippant. Plus I wasn’t following the rules of a pun. Tanks are on my mind.

        I love the Pogues, and yes, that song is great.

  6. I’ve often wondered about fruit & other “fermentable” vegetation in relation to that waxwings ancient cousins. The herbivore mega-dinosaurs digested their fodder for as long as possible – while grinding up the cellulose in their stomach[s?] with rocks.

    So were these walking fermentation tanks prone to drunken sprees?

    1. My tortoise used to get buzzed on fermenting cherries that fell off my parents’ tree in their backyard. He also ate deadly nightshade and he’d foam at the eyes.

        1. Buzzed he was just ditzy & would wander around with no purpose.

          We tried to get him away from the nightshade but it never seemed to hurt him. He also liked to eat plantane.

      2. …Image of “buzzed” tortoise achieving 0.1 MPH on berries…

        Have you read any Terry Pratchett? All of his books [there’s many] are a lovely light read & in his *Small Gods* the simple tortoise plays a pivotal role [I like cliches such as “boots on the ground”]

        “The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives [it’s not murder if you do it for a god]”

        “Bishops move diagonally. That’s why they often turn up where the kings don’t expect them to be”

        “Just because you can explain it doesn’t mean it’s not still a miracle”

        “Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off”

        “One day a tortoise will learn how to fly”

  9. There once was a Bohemian Waxwing,
    Who found eating berries relaxing.
    But as they were fermented
    He became quite demented
    And found out that flying was taxing.

  11. I have done much the same thing with pigeons I find in my back lot who appeared unsteady and couldn’t fly. At first I thought someone was poisoning them, but I soon figured out they were drunk on some fermented fruit. I put them in a 3’high screened pen with an open top (I call it the drunk tank, too). When they achieve sobriety they just fly away!

  12. Such berries, post freezing, may be to avian species as sweet as humans’ ice wines.

    Far too, too sweet a vino for my taste is ice wine: http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine

    Also due to its ( so coooold ) harvesting and processing labors, it is mightily expensive.

    Oft bottled in ½ – fifth volumes it is so, so sugary; about seven years ago now: local such = $65.00 a ½.

    Blue

  14. We have a large picture window in our dining room and an even larger mountain ash just outside. We had so many pissed waxwings hitting that window the first year we bought the house that we hung 1 inch wide ribbons at intervals of about 18 inches on the inside of the window during the fall and winter when the waxwings over-indulge, and haven’t had a problem in 13 years.

    1. Our front windows are protected by a porch roof and are deadly, so we use plastic cutouts that cling to the glass. By putting them on the outside, they aren’t hidden by the deceptive reflections.

  15. Hey… you wit de feathers … yeah,all over yr rump. Yeah you wanna peck some seed wi’ me outta de can? Youknowhaddimeean? Cook cooooo?

  16. Those birds aren’t the only bohemians to be in their cups in White Horse. Dylan Thomas got blotto at the White Horse Tavern (“eighteen straight whiskies, a record, I believe”) before returning to the Hotel Chelsea and going not-so-gentle down its stairwell, thereby giving death its dominion — or at least that’s the (possibly apocryphal)tale I was told by the maître d’hôtel.

  18. Here in Adelaide we have rainbow lorikeets that over-indulge on the fermented nectar of a tree in the Botanic Garden. This is about the right season so I will try to get some pictures to send. I haven’t seen anyone trying to rehabilitate them. It’s warm at this time of year so no problems with hypothermia.

  19. Beside all the drunken avian humor, I’d just like to add that that really is quite an attractive bird!

  20. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
    By the false azure in the windowpane;
    I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
    Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

    Nabokov, Pale Fire

  22. Maybe they see their reflections in the windows.
    ‘Who you starin’ at buddy? You wanna go? You want some? FUK YOU’
    Wakes up in the drunk tank. ‘Think I look bad? You should see the other guy’

  23. I had similar thing happen with some apples I purchased from the store. They didn’t freeze, but they did appear to be contaminated by bacteria or yeast. The apples looked fine, but they expanded, the skin cracked and split and a yeast like smell was very apparent. There was no discoloration, but the meat of the apples became very mealy.

    I’ve never seen anything like it before and I can’t find anything about it on the internet.

  24. I well remember seeing a film by Jamie Uys in the mid-70s with scenes of various birds and mammals indulging in fermented Marula berries, though he was known to use staging and editing for comic effect rather than ever being a ‘pure’ documentarian. (He’s the guy who put honey badgers on the world stage long before Randall made them nastyass)

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