Happy to report that “a new threat has emerged”. The latest development in the goat saga is that the goat is being eaten alive by birds. This has, according to experts on the news, never happened before.
It's because they're using a new hay collection method which means the hay is FULL of seedheads, which it never has been before. They basically put a gigantic pile of seeds in the middle of a park in winter, so naturally every bird in the city is like "oh shit, low effort high calorie food! Fuck yes a little treat for me" and is just homing in on the goat like a missile.
It's a great glut of food for them in the winter! Not so great for the goat, who has become an all you can eat buffet for hungry winter birds.
Birds don't normally go for the goat because its just plain hay, which isn't really edible for birds. But like. A giant seed treat is a different story.
And because nobody is allowed near the goat obviously nobody can chase off the birds. Which means all those jackdaws are going to their jackdaw mates and going "hey, did you hear there's a giant easy seed buffet in the middle of town?" Because they're very social birds who spread information like food deposits and threats, which means there's a whole network of birds who
A: know the goat exists
B: know it is full of easy calories, a rare thing in the winter months
C: know they won't be chased off it by humans all that much
D: know it is gigantic and full of nice little crevices for a little bird to rest on while they eat
Which is why there's quite so many birds flocking to it.
And the straw isn't like, deeplu glued in or anything because literally why would they? They build these goats expecting the weather and arson to be the biggest problem, they absolutely did not plan for many sharp, narrow little beaks yanking out mouthfuls of hay to get at the seeds, which is whats happening. Someone removing the hay from it has never really been like an issue. Every few birds probably dislodges like, a hand full of hay? Which really starts to build up, especially since its very hard to stop the birds now they know its there.
This is so 2023.
