17llantt
Read the selection and choose the best answer to each question that…
Read the selection and choose the best answer to each question that follows.
Keeping the Buzzards at Bay
Imagine that you are sitting at your desk on the 26th floor of a downtown office building. It’s lunchtime, and you are getting ready to enjoy your bologna sandwich, or pasta salad, or reheated pizza, or whatever you’ve brought for lunch today. You turn to look out the window expecting to see your usual view: the tops of other buildings spread out below you, with maybe a bit of the river, a lake, or the bay nearby. Instead, you see a large and very ugly black bird sitting on the window ledge. It is happily consuming what is left of a pigeon it has just caught on one of the neighboring buildings. The image doesn’t exactly add to the pleasure of your lunch, does it?
This is not a scene from some horror movie. Believe it or not, it’s a pretty regular sight in several Central and South Florida cities during the fall and winter. The birds are turkey vultures, or buzzards, and they gather each year on the roofs and ledges of downtown buildings to spend the winter.
Any motorist who has cruised Florida’s highways has seen these unsightly birds. They often gather by the side of the road to finish off the carcass of some unfortunate animal. To the untrained eye, these birds in flight often look like large hawks. They circle lazily on the air currents above the ground and are surprisingly graceful in flight. Close up, however, they present a different image. On the ground, they are clumsy and ungainly. They are also, in most people’s opinions, quite hideous. Buzzards have black, oily-looking feathers that reach only to their necks. Their heads are bald, covered with bumpy red skin. Their beaks are hooked, blocky, and unattractive, made for tearing meat.
Of course, out on the edges of the highway, turkey vultures are actually “doing their jobs.” They are part of the ecosystem, breaking down garbage and returning it to the soil. In the center of downtown, though, they can present a major problem. In addition to the disgusting sight of them eating outside the windows, they also cause damage to buildings. Their droppings contain acid, which eats away at building materials. The simple weight of all those birds on window ledges and roofs, as well as the damage inflicted by their talons, also harms buildings. Some birds make nests at the tops of power lines, sometimes causing power outages, and the noise they make is distracting, at best.
Tenants and building owners alike have tried several ways to discourage the birds from taking over downtown in cities such as Tampa and Miami. Some owners have strung grids of slightly electrified wire across the tops of their roofs. When a buzzard touches the wire, it receives a small shock. It’s not enough to hurt the birds, owners sayjust enough to keep them away. Some owners have tried recording and playing back the sounds of turkey vultures in distress. This often backfires, though, as the noise attracts birds wanting to help their “hurt” friends. Owners have also tried blasting out the noise of a buzzard’s cry as a warning to birds. This bothered people on the streets below far more than it did the birds.
One method that has seemed to work fairly well at keeping buzzards at bay is using scarecrows. The scarecrows must be hung so that they move though, because vultures tend to attack and destroy stationary objects. Some buildings have department store mannequins dressed in bright colors swinging from window ledges or roofs. Other building owners get really creative. For example, they use mannequins dressed as figures such as Santa Claus during holiday seasons.
No method can keep the birds completely away, of course. In fact, as humans invade their habitats, more birds may be forced to flock to the city to look for food and nesting places. For those who eat their lunches on the upper floors of buildings, the best idea may be just to close the blinds and ignore what is happening outside.
Which technique does the writer use in this selection to get the reader’s attention?
A
Irony
B
Glittering generality
C
Humor
D
Vivid detail
