Switzerland, or at least some of the Swiss, have a contentious relationship with bells, but a pair of nesting storks recently got its way when church officials in Aesch, near Basel, turned off the church bells to give the birds peace.
The story has long roots: six years ago, the town spent about €15,000 to build a nest on the church steeple, complete with a door between the tower and the nest to make it easy to repair the nest or band the birds. But no birds ever came.
By 2016, the town decided it would have better luck if the nest wasn’t rocked hourly by the chiming of the bells, and turned them off. The move seems to have paid off: A pair of storks has now occupied the nest, and the bells will remain silent.
Oh, and about those contentious humans: In 2015, we reported on a lawsuit from near Zurich, where a court ordered farmers to remove cowbells at night so neighbors could sleep, and in 2017, we covered demands by a Zurich councilman to have the city’s church bells silenced from 11 pm to 7 am, citing studies showing that they disturbed sleep and impaired health.
More humans lending a hand to wildlife, our California utility, PG&E, hosting peregrine falcons on the 33rd floor of their San Francisco headquarters building. Have a look at the live webcam, we have chicks !!!https://www.pge.com/en_US/resi…mc_id=Vanity_falcons
Now watching 3 chicks (chicks?) and apparently 1 dud. The 3 being fed between foraging trips by parents.