Bird hell

A downside of living in our house (a place I have dubbed "The Forest" because there are 15 trees on our small property - 15!) is the amount of critters that also call it home. We've had woodpeckers, raccoons, squirrels, mice, quail - but the worst, oh the worst critter of all? THE BIRDS.

We've had our fair share of bird problems over the years. Let me recap:

- January 2008: GJ is out of town for work and I am working in our office alone when I hear someone walking on the roof. I go outside and look around the house - nothing. I come back inside only to hear the walking getting more frantic...and sounding eerily closer. I pull a chair up to the vent leading to the attic and - SOMETHING RUNS ACROSS! A bat? Rat? Squirrel? Terrified, I spend the night at my sister-in-laws, hoping to return to an either escaped or dead animal. No such luck; attic animal is still going at it. My handyman neighbor is brave enough to crawl into our attic and grab the offending creature with his bare hands. Turns out, it was a bird. A starling, to be exact. And their torture on us begins.

- June 2008. I am working on my laptop in the living room, probably stalking the mailman, when I see out of the corner of my eye a frantic bird continually hopping around the front porch landing. And then I witness what can only be described as bird rape. Yes, bird rape. This poor, small female (or male? Who can tell with birds.) sparrow is continually being mounted by an aggressive, large sparrow. This act continues long enough for me to take numerous blurry cell phone pictures to prove to GJ what was transgressing right outside our front door when the small bird finally flies away.

- Approximately the entire summer of 2008. 5 a.m. Baby birds, outside our window. Chirping. More like an angry scream chirp, if that's possible. EVERY. DAMN. MORNING.

- July 2008. A now broken baby bird egg and tiny baby bird carcass are found on the front porch.

- Later July 2008. The Stowell vegetable garden is finally planted and sprouting. And the birds are single-handedly (single-clawly? single-beakly?) destroying it. I buy rubber snakes and use old CDs to detract the birds (the internet suggested this). Despite the fact that planting was done extremely late in the gardening season, I blame the lack of crops on the birds.

- September 2008. GJ is cleaning pine needles out from the rain gutters when he finds THREE bird nests ON the house. He removes them all and puts up chicken wire.

- October 2008. I am dressing a newborn Peanut for her first appointment with the pediatrician when I hear a loud pop and strange whirling coming from the swamp cooler. GJ investigates - only to find that a bird has flown into the swamp cooler and was chopped up, most likely spraying bird guts throughout our vents. GJ removes the dead bird, only to scare me with its deformed, mangled body - I never forgive him for this.

- April 1, 2009. After a bird-free winter, I am not excited to see the beginnings of a nest and feathers on the front door mat.

- April 8, 2009. I see a red something-or-other poking out in the green ivy on the front lawn. On closer inspection, I find a single bird beak and talon - the other remains of the bird are not seen. Of course only a bird would orchestrate an attack on his own kind.

- April 14, 2009. A second bird rape is witnessed.

- April 29, 2009. The garden is planted a full two months earlier than last year, and the birds are already out in full force, destroying our romaine lettuce and going as far to eat a grown, ready-to-sprout brandy wine tomato plant down to a tiny nub.

SO BIRDS. I can tell you all about how menacing, dangerous, horny and disgusting these creatures are. I have witnessed a bird break-in, a bird violently rip apart another and bird sexual ab use. I haven't even bothered addressing the amount of bird crap I've had to clean off our windows (including THROUGH THE SCREEN. That has to be some pretty tricky angling.)

Haven't I had enough?

Apparently not. Because you want to know what I STEPPED on the other day?


(Yes, I'm pointing to it.)

A DEAD BIRD! Yes, my sandled toe actually touched this dead, furry, most likely diseased creature. I'm not even going to go into the details of how many times I scrubbed and washed my poor toe. Let's talk about how this bird chose to die. Just sitting up, in possibly the creepiest death position ever. The dead birds I've seen at least attempt to die dramatically, feet in the air, wings spread out. This guy looks like he's taking a mid-afternoon nap.

I'm going to try to end this post without copious amounts of expletives because I'm pretty close to getting a cat or a gun (and, if you know me, if I purchased either it is surely the sign of the Apocalypse.)

Simply put...BIRDS: WE ARE DONE!