About a month ago, Ben, longing for a pet, went to Petco to buy bird feeders. I tagged along, of course (just to make sure he didn’t come back with a chinchilla or some other ridiculous animal). Down in the dregs of Petco we found a rarely visited shelf of feeders. I suggested the weak shanty-looking kind, you know, where one gust of wind would knock the whole thing over. But no, he was “conducing a scientific experiment,” which, I’m not exactly clear on, but that’s not the point. We now own two very different industrial-sized bird feeders that house two separate types of seed.
I joked that we’d come home one day and see some bizarre quasi pigeon banging his wings against the feeder, but for the first weeks we had no action. Ben’s experiment couldn’t even get off the ground. (It had no wings! Ha, I’m amazing.)
But now the whole thing has completely spiraled out of control. One day after work I came home to find—what I assumed to be—two parents sitting ON the feeder, while a family of 10 baby birds hopped around eating. It was cute to see, but as I watched through the window, Mama and Papa Bear glared back at me. They were really mean glares. Like, if the window wasn’t there, they would have poked my voyeuristic eyes out.
There’s also a War of the Worlds happening between two king birds. One hides in the plants, waiting for his opponent to arrive at lunch, only to jump out and scare him away. (Yes, that actually is what the book is about.)
I understand that they’re animals, and this is what they do. But (of course there’s a but), they’ve completely taken over the patio. I can’t go out there! As I write this, there are four sitting on my barbeque. Not like I want to BBQ at 9AM, but if I wanted to I couldn’t. And you don’t even want to know how much bird crap is out there.
At what point does the scientist call in the guards?
