So this has been going on for some time and it is really one of the most irritating things the city has done in a while. This summer, the Louisville Metro Police station at the corner of Bardstown Road and Rosewood Avenue installed a small sonic device that emits the sound of bird distress calls to scare away nuisance birds most likely perches atop the giant metro communications tower behind the station.
The photo above right is a model that operates near Ninth Street and Main Street beneath the Interstate 64 overpass that makes similar noises, deafeningly loud when you stand near the box. Under the highway it’s not so annoying but along one of Louisville’s most busy pedestrian streets full of walkers, shoppers, and outdoor diners, hearing the same fake bird-call noise pollution every 10 to 15 minutes is enough to drive us crazy. One common noise-unit called Bird-X-Peller describes the device as such:
BirdXPeller takes very high fidelity recordings of birds’ distress cries (supplied by a major American university) and inscribes them on to a microchip using the latest audio technology. The resulting sound is so faithful to the original that they cannot be told apart! The infesting birds perceive danger when they hear these sounds, become agitated and disoriented, and flee the area… not to return.
If the police or the city do not take the unit down soon, the pedestrians and shoppers around the station will likely “become agitates and disoriented, and flee the area… not to return.”
I’ve thought for a while that there was something going on at that intersection. It’s really a terrible sound.