
Here we have two signs, the top one from Tallinn, Estonia the lower one from Espoo, Finland. Both aim to restrict the feeding of birds by combining a symbolic red slashed circle for "NO" and an iconic silhouette of a bird and some food.
What caught my interest in these two signs are the differences. The Estonian sign contains no text, depicts a human hand which is handing out the food, and depicts a bird that looks something like a pigeon. The Finnish sign, on the other hand, has the text "[IT IS] FORBIDDEN TO FEED THE BIRDS" in the two official languages of Finnish and Swedish, shows no human but just a sparrow-like bird seemingly eating some seeds.
The sign in Tallinn was located in a passenger harbor, while the Finnish sign was found in a train station. Might the selection of the bird type reflect the local bird species distribution? Is the language choice reflecting the fact that the harbor area is filled with tourists who do not speak Estonian?
Most interesting I find the difference that the hand brings to the picture. To me it feels like the Estonian sign is forbidding the human action of feeding, while the Finnish sign is against avian feasting in general.