Here’s a new feature, Re-Run Monday. Lots of our old stuff didn’t make it over to the new site last year, so we’re uploading some of them here on Re-Run Mondays. Some of you might remember them, some of you might be new enough, this will be just like the first time around. Thanks for sticking with us!
By Wendy Pierman Mitzel
3/27/13
Ahhhh Spring!
The daffodils burst yellow from the muddy earth.
A single crocus reaches for the sun.
And the shiny grackle bird spreads its wings in preparation to turd-bomb my backyard swimming pool.
As I said to my son the other day: “It’s not Spring until I start yelling ‘Quit pooping in my pool!’ out the kitchen window.”
Grackles show up in Spring to nest and like Navy Seals carefully plan their siege on my pool cover.
Birdwatching blogs identify them as bullies and now I know why. These birds mock me with their beautiful iridescent feathers and alight on the very tree the little sparrows prefer and either kill them or drive them away.
The sparrows and I are not the only victims of these poop-launching missiles. There are tons of blogs and web-forums dedicated to other’s driven cuckoo by these bird-brains.
Apparently, these “fecal sacs” are produced by baby birds and the parents are just cleaning out the nest. They like the pool depository because it helps deter predators. Are you shitting me?!
I guess you are.
Even worse than watching this happen is the knowledge that at some point in the near future, I will attempt to wrestle the nasty cover off the pool without dumping the dumpings all over myself or back into the pool. Cue the gag reflex.
The general consensus on-line is that I am screwed. Henpecked. Caged. Unless I can somehow rig a ten-foot-tall fishing-line/mylar balloon contraption that would make Cirque-du-Soleil jealous.
The vultures get a little scared of shiny things, according to the websites. They certainly aren’t scared of my big black dog. Or me bellowing at them like a curmudgeonly old man telling kids to stay off his lawn.
Like the first flowers poking through the frozen ground, my battle with the birds is a seasonal rite of passage. I will fight on with shiny tape and fake owls and industrial strength cleaner until the babies leave their nests, the grackles sing their swan-song and move on and I can breathe a sigh of relief… until next Spring.