They are back with a vengeance. And I'm determined to win this battle. Last spring, I didn't really use my front door much as I went in and out through the garage. So I never really noticed that swallows were attempting to build a nest over my front door. And then I left for Idaho and when I came back, there were several eggs and I knew they were going to be there for a while. This made it so that I really couldn't use my front door, even if I had wanted to (see Exhibit E). Finally the birds hatched and learned how to fly and I promptly destroyed the nest. They're ba-ack. I noticed them last week and saw to my surprise that they were starting to drag nest stuff back. So I hosed it down. Next day, more nest stuff stuff. I hosed it down. They liked to sleep on the lamp so I'd go out at night with a broom and scare them off. Only I never really scared them because they'd be back the next day. Well, the ante was upped this weekend. I woke up on Saturday and they had started bringing over the mud to hold everything together. I hosed it down. I then went for a 2 hour run and when I came back, they had rebuilt. I hosed it down. Again they rebuilt. Again I hosed it down. By Sunday they were really picking up the pace and managed to get quite a lot built during my ride. Hosed down before and after ride. I went to McGuckins and begged for help. I can't do the spikes. As much as I hate birds, I can't deal with the pain and suffering. I once saw a bird stuck in the spikes. It wasn't pleasant. Anyhow, they suggested this holographic ribbon. Apparently birds don't like sparkly things. So we went out and hung sparkly ribbons and they stayed away for the rest of the day. But by nighttime, they were back on the light. I turned on the light thinking it would make the ribbon sparkle, but I guess they close their eyes because it didn't do anything. For good luck, I put a few more strips of sparkles up before I left for work. You can imagine my complete surprise to come home and find a half-built nest (the horror!). Fortunately I went back to McGuckins at lunch. It's not that I don't trust the sparkles but I wanted to be prepared. So I bought this goop that you spread on whatever it is that they're trying to land on. It's sticky so they don't like to land on it. However, it's only called a deterrent, so I was hoping that maybe it would go great with sparkles. Hosed off the nest and started to apply the goop. It is really sticky. This better work! Otherwise I think I'm going to have to stake out on the porch all day with the hose, which I don't think work would really go for.
Exhibit A:
When I was 4 I got nipped on the butt by a turkey, who then proceeded to chase me while my dad watched and laughed. I'm an animal lover and when I was 4, turkeys apparently were no different than fluffy, furry animals like dogs and cats, or so I thought. My dad's friend was raising them (no, I don't know why), so I wandered to the backyard to check them out. One of the birds started to come towards me as I approached. It was roughly the same height as me from what I remember. It was a lot bigger than I had expected and a LOT uglier and definitely not fluffy. It started getting closer and closer and I decided that I really didn't like animals all that much and was starting to get a little scared, so I turned and headed back down the driveway to the front of the house. The turkey started to follow me. I picked up the pace. It picked up the pace. I started running. It started running. It caught up and pecked me on the butt. At this point, I'm pretty sure I screamed and started into a full on sprint. I ran around the porch and up the stairs and the turkey tried to cut me off by taking the shortcut - it bypassed the stairs and jumped directly onto the porch. (This is the part where my dad decided to "rescue" me by watching the episode from the window and laughing. But as you can see, I've gotten over it.)
Exhibit B:
My dad raised chickens, ducks, and geese which were allowed to wander free during the day (they lived up in the mountains where you pretty much had to drive to get to the nearest neighbor). I had the distinct privilege of herding said beasts into the chicken coop at night. It was a task that terrified me nightly. In fact, I finally wrote my dad at the beginning of one summer and told him that I would only come to visit him if I didn't have to deal with the poultry. I wouldn't say that this was exactly how things turned out. My other criteria that summer was that I didn't have to take naps and I didn't really win on this end either). Herding them into the enclosure wasn't such an issue, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that I had in entirely under control. The real problem lay in ushering them into their pens. The ducks and geese went into a small plywood box (there were "windows" so they had plenty of air) and the chickens went into an A-frame coop. Both were then closed up and bricks were piled along the outside board so unwanted visitors (fox, coyote, etc) couldn't get in. The geese and ducks didn't have a ton of room, and they probably didn't love the lack of freedom. They would often reach their skinny little necks out of the "window" and bite my wrists. This usually sent me running for the highest ground, which was atop the fence between the pen and the garden, which of course meant that I was now trapped atop of the fence and the geese and ducks could then run amok.
Exhibit C:
I once got yelled out because I was carrying a chicken (the way you carry chicken is upside down by their feet) and the stupid bird reached up and pecked my wrist, causing me to drop it and it then ran away. Guess who had to go catch it.
Exhibit D:
Many years ago I was driving on I-90 from Rochester to New Jersey. I had my cat Utah with me in the car and she was peacefully sleeping on the front seat (she was always a good traveler). We were cruising along at 70 mph minding our own business, singing out loud, whatever else one does when they are alone in the car with a cat on a long road trip. It was a divided highway with a big green strip in the middle. There were lots of flocks of birds out. You know that thing that flocks do where they all suddenly turn at the same time and somehow don't crash into each other. Well, there was a lot of that going on. At one point, they all swooped towards my side of the road and I remember thinking that they better get out of the way and as I thought it, they all swooped together back over the green strip. And suddenly they swooped towards my lane and being that I was still going 70, I was now upon them. Wump! Wump! Wump! Wump! What seemed like hundreds and hundreds of birds were now just flying into my front windshield. I screamed because what else could I do. I may have closed my eyes, which you are probably thinking is pretty dumb, but you try keeping your eyes open when hundreds of birds are flying straight at your face with nothing but a glass windshield (that you don't necessarily see when all you see are birds) between you. We finally drove out of the mayhem and I looked out my rearview mirror. There was a pile of dead birds lying on the road and my car was covered in feathers, and other parts. And Utah? She slept through the whole thing.
Exhibit E:
About 10 years ago I was visiting Scotland and we took a boat ride over to Inchcolm - a historic island and abbey in the Firth of Forth. It was nesting season and the gulls were everywhere "trying to protect their young". Some of the pathways on the island were closer to nests than others. We started walking down one of the paths with the gulls swooping down at us and screaming and squawking. With each squawk, I started crouching lower until I could go no further as I had pretty much turned myself into a ball.
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