Friday, March 20, 2009

The rites (and wrongs) of spring

Some people have bats in their belfry. I have birds in my wall. Here's a picture of their front door:

That's the wall outside my bedroom. The hole is three feet to the right of the head of my bed. Thankyouverymuch, Mr. General Contractor Woodpecker, for marking MY territory as yours and providing low-cost housing for the neighborhood bird population.

If you've never had birds in your wall, you're probably thinking, "Oh, how sweet, you have your very own birds." Um, no. Believe me, it's not sweet. Nor is it cute.

They're loud. They thump around in there sounding like they each weigh 200 pounds, constantly pecking and scratching at the wall.  They chirp and coo and squawk. They're rude, waking me up every morning in that dark gray time of not-quite-dawn, then carry on like that for hours.

They're also pregnant. Or whatever. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they have eggs in there. Because that's what birds do this time of year. So as much as I'd love to shoo them away and plug the hole, I have to wait until the baby birds hatch. And that is when things get really noisy. What a way to start the day. Seriously, after a half hour of listening to the increasingly frantic pitiful chorus of desperate baby bird hunger, you want to bang on the wall and scream at the mother, "What are you doing? FEED them already!"

Why yes, this has happened before. This is the third happy little bird family I've hosted over the years. Without invitation.

The cat is hoping they come through the wall into the bedroom. She spends a good bit of time sitting on the nightstand, head cocked at her most intense listening angle, staring at the wall. Waiting.

Here she is, glaring back at me, daring me to tell her to Get. Down. Off. The. Furniture.

And once they're gone, it's not easy (or cheap) to find someone who is willing and able to climb three stories off the ground to replace and paint siding boards. It's a two-story house, but we're on a hill and the basement is open to the outside at that end of the house, so it's effectively three stories there. It requires a very long ladder and nerves of steel.

If I'm really lucky, these birds won't have mites like the second bird family who took up residence did . . . and I won't end up having to get my bedroom fumigated. Again.

Happy First Day of Spring, stupid damn birds.


5 comments:

The Merry said...

Never had woodpeckers try moving in. Bees and raccoons, mostly. Had to say which is worse. The bees left some nice honeycombs, but they're awfully territorial. And raccoon babies tend to use their den as a bathroom, plus they are nocturnal and loved to scrabble back and forth (trim those nails, damnit!) above my head at 3 a.m.
Birds? At an hour when you should be waking up anyway? Tsk.

Um... can you lower somebody from the roof to deal with the holes? On a bungee cord, so you can tell people it's an adventure activity and charge them money for it.

pippet - the character Dickens was going to write about, before he decided to scrap the puppet version of Great Expectations.

BCB said...

No, the woodpecker didn't move in, he was just in charge of construction. It's a pair (so far) or medium sized black birds (not blackbirds) with yellow beaks. No idea what they are.

Bungee jumping off the roof? Might be a bit of a challenge, trying to explain that to the insurance company.

And no, I should NOT be waking up at 5:00. Sadist.

Scope Dope Cherrybomb said...

Why is the cat sitting idly on the furniture when it has a job to do? If said cat were to climb the drapes and hiss and meow I am sure the birds would take off. Wouldn't they?

Theresa said...

Awww, baby birds. ;)

Wasn't it owls last year?

BCB said...

Yes! Owls! Strange owl creatures that sounded like demon-possessed flying monkeys. Terrifyingly awesome. They've come back a few times and I love hearing them, now I know what they are. But they were just in the trees, not living in my walls. Owls are too wise for that.

I had to set up a gmail account for the owner of our company today. Blogger just insisted it was he trying to comment here, not me. Quite disturbing.