An Interaction That Started With 'Why Is Bird Poop White?'

A starling roost has formed in my neighborhood, and the asphalt is covered in poop. On the way to nursery school, while staring at the poop-covered asphalt, I muttered,"Doesn't it look almost pretty now, beyond just being dirty?" My third son, who just turned four, was jumping around saying, "Poop is gross! I'm going to dodge all of it!" How charming.

While watching that, I suddenly wondered,
"Why is bird poop white, anyway?"

It stands out on the asphalt because it's white, and if it were a more 'poop-like' color (whatever that means), it would blend into the ground, so I found the reason for it being white to be unsatisfying.

Creatures like birds have reasons for their colors, shapes, movements, and even the color of their poop, and I'm pretty sure Darwin said something about how they reached this point through the process of evolution for some reason or another.

Hyena poop is white because they devour the bones, so since birds eat things like plant seeds and insects, there shouldn't be any element that would make it white.

There must be a reason why bird poop has to be white, and I thought I had to ask my eldest son. My eldest son (a fifth grader) is a self-proclaimed and widely recognized bird expert who goes birdwatching on weekends and is even a member of the Wild Bird Society of Japan.

I thought, 'When my eldest son gets home from school, I'll ask him why bird poop is white,' as I dropped my third son off at nursery school. I might have been thinking about bird poop so much that I wasn't listening to my third son on the way to school. He was probably talking about poop too, so he was likely thinking the same thing.

I was so bothered by the fact that bird poop is white that I tweeted about it on X before I could ask my eldest son.

And then, believe it or not, the author Rinko Akiya replied to me.

She didn't tell me to ask an AI or anything like that, but instead explained the reason why bird poop is white. So kind. I was moved.

△ Rinko-san's latest work goes on sale March 6th!! I really loved her previous work, so I'm looking forward to it.

Let's get back to the subject of poop.

The white part is the urine. I see, so it's because of uric acid. Uric acid!? That uric acid that causes gout when levels get too high!? My thoughts were about to derail even further, but regardless, I thought it was a good morning to finally learn why bird poop is white.

Then, believe it or not, someone else I hadn't met before joined the conversation, and because the talk expanded from bird poop to whether it's called 'shikko' or 'oshikko,' I ended up having even more fun.

You followed me on Note and X because of that poop conversation, didn't you?

These days, we live in a world where you can ask AI anything and get an answer, but I thought it was nice to live in a world where people on social media—a place where you can always feel the presence of others—would answer a trivial question like 'Why is bird poop white?'

Yeah, a day like this.
A day worth remembering.
An interaction that starts with starling poop.