For the Birds

I have a bird thing. I hate, hate, hate them. It all started at Sea World when I was 5 which is a story I may or may not have shared so if I haven't here's the really watered down version: dolphin feeding, fish, seagulls, terror. After that, there were the birds that nested in the vent above the stove in our house in Pittsburgh. Little pieces of their nest would sometimes fall through onto the stove. Ewww.

After that there was college, better known as The 724. At The 724 some birds nested in the vent of our 2nd floor bathroom. My bedroom was right above that 2nd floor bathroom. Which meant every morning, like 6am morning, momma bird would come back to throw up food into her babies mouths. And if you've ever heard what baby birds sound like while they're waiting for food, you know what I'm talking about: It. Is. Painstaking. For hours you would be kept awake listening to those stupid little birds chirp. Eventually we had to get the landlord involved. The not watered down version of this story would probably make people really uncomfortable (and possibly get other people in trouble) so let's just say, it got taken care of.

Next, there has been the ongoing issue of the robins and the windows. (When I say ongoing I mean like 2 years ongoing.) For the last 2 years, every spring, robins start crashing into our windows. I mean, full force, flying as hard as they can into our windows. They bounce off, since, you know, you can't fly through glass, and just kind looked confused for a minute. They then proceed to do this over and over and over and over, without ever getting smart enough to realize what they're doing is really freaking stupid. Some Internet research led us to figure out the birds seem to think it is another bird facing off with them so they fly into the window to start battle. They are too dumb to realize that it's just their reflection so: They just. Don't. Stop.

Want to know what the solution to that little problem is? Printing out giant pictures of owls and other big scary birds and taping them to your windows. Because while robins are not smart enough to not run into windows over and over again they are smart enough to avoid printouts of paper owls.

There was a blue jay in the tree outside my window yesterday. It caught my eye because it was a blue jay. I'm used to stupid robins running into my windows. I walked over to the window in time to see a robin chasing it out of the tree. You get three guesses why this robin was so concerned. The beginnings of a nest are in this tree.

What's going to happen to that nest? I don't know yet. But I'm fairly certain the answer starts with the word: DESTROY.