The birds and the bees, and then some

GRAPHIC: ISTOCK.COM/ERAVAU

As the busy season for pest management professionals (PMPs) gets under way, so, too, does the busy season for strange pest stories in the news. For example:

• The dove is a sign of peace: Police officers in Carrollton, Texas, had to take a cruiser out of commission for two weeks when a dove decided to nest and lay eggs on its windshield. The report is per KRLD NewsRadio 1080, an AM station serving Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas. Whether the nesting was done out of protest or opportunity was not determined.
• Borrowed Buick’s backseat bees: According to NBC’s “The Today Show,” the Las Cruces, N.M., police got a call from a man who returned to his car in a parking lot after grocery shopping, only to encounter an estimated 15,000 honey bees in the back. The car had its back windows down. Luckily, an off-duty firefighter, Jesse Johnson, is also a beekeeper. He was able to safely relocate the bees to his property. A store security guard was stung, but that was the only reported injury.
• I’m tired of these monkey-fighting snakes on this monkey-fighting shelf (with apologies to Samuel L. Jackson): This headline from WAPT, the ABC-TV affiliate of Jackson, Miss., encapsulates it all: “‘He’s slithering, oh my gosh’: Woman spots snake on shelf at a Target.” The black rat snake was cozied up to some cans of baked beans in Apex, N.C.
• Protecting the synchronous fireflies: While the previous stories focused on critters that were in places they weren’t supposed to be, this story, from Atlas Obscura, is about protecting Lampyridae beetles in their natural habitat.