Travelers arriving at Oregon’s Portland International Airport (PDX) on international flights now get welcomed to the arrivals area by a flock of birds.

Not real birds, but life-size images of birds representing 34 species of birds seen in the Portland area. A new art installation, “Flight,” has a blue-sky back drop, white clouds and copies of illustrations by artist David Allen Sibley, the writer and illustrator of Audubon’s The Sibley Guide to Birds, a comprehensive resource for bird identification.

Birds are fine inside the airport. Outside, they’re a hazard to aircraft. So to keep birds away from a water containment pond, the wildlife management department floats thousands of black plastic balls on a pond at one end of the airfield.

What does that do? According to an airport newsletter:

“The black balls completely cover the water so, to birds flying overhead, it looks like solid ground – so much so, they don’t even circle around to check it out.”

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