Sometime in Spring, some birds moved into a nest on a post on our front porch. At the time we thought: “Isn’t that nice. A little wildlife refuge come to our suburban home.
That was before we realized they were the BIRDS FROM HELL.
My wife believes they are Barn Swallows, and they are very territorial. Whenever anyone approaches their nest with hostile intention (such as trying to put a flyer for the new Chinese restaurant in our door or trying to enter the house) they swoop and chirp and chirp and swoop coming so close to the intruder’s head that he/she can feel them in his/her hair.
Ryan is terrified and wont go in or out the front door. At first we laughed it off, finding it funny that a nearly 12 year old boy would be afraid of some little birds, but I began to realize that Ryan’s fear was real. Not just put on for laughs.
I decided to take back our home.
Friday evening we were expecting Linda’s brother to visit from Pittsburgh. I imagined them standing at our front door, ringing the doorbell with one hand and fending off attacks from dive-bombing Barn Swallows with the other.
I would knock down the nest.
The birds had some babies earlier in the year, but the babies had since grown up and become thugs in their little gang. I decided it was time. I grabbed a pick-axe from the garage and strode purposefully to the meeting place for their little “cell”, convincing myself at this point that they could very well be in league with Osama Bin Laden.
There was one in the nest and another one hovering as I pushed it off the post. It was like an explosion going off they were both flapping in my face and squawking at the tops of their beaks. I ran for cover, closed the garage door and announced triumphantly to Linda: “The deed is done.”
A few hours later, Linda’s brother and his girlfriend arrived. As we were helping them get their bags out of the car, the birds were sitting on the gutters squawking at us. I don’t speak bird, but I’m pretty sure they were saying: “________ you! We’re going to ________ you up!” This was the first time I started recognizing the ugliness in myself as I heard myself saying to them, as I re-entered our house: “Yeah! Well it looks like we still have our house, don’t we? Where’s yours?”
The next morning, I went out ahead of our guests to run blocker for them. Sure enough, the birds came swooping and chirping, chirping and swooping. My brother in law stood laughing and his girlfriend screamed as the birds brushed my hair in pass after pass. They eventually got the courage to make a run for the car, and we made some hasty goodbyes before running back into the house.
As I was mowing the lawn yesterday afternoon, they just wouldn’t leave me alone. Now I’m a very non-violent person, but I had had enough of this bullying. If these birds are going to attack something that weighs 1000 times more than them, they deserve what they get.
I grabbed a rake from the garage, and resumed mowing with the rake tucked under my arm. I didn’t want to hit them too hard. Just teach them a little lesson, but they were too fast. They swooped, I raised the rake, and they just went right over it. Eventually I found myself swinging and swatting and jumping at them, but I still wasn’t coming close.
“Well,” I said to Linda. “Maybe they can dodge the rake, but let’s see how they do against the power-washer.”
We had bought a power-washer on Saturday (mainly to clean the bird p00P and nest remnants off the front porch). I began blasting the p00p, and they came right at me. I turned off the water, hoping to lure them close . . . and then . . . BLAST! Just missed, but I must have gotten his feathers wet. I figured they’d stay away after that, but they just kept coming: Swoop, BLAST, Swoop BLAST, Swoop, BLAST!!!!!
I was coming within millimeters, but still not getting them. I packed it in and gave up and went to have some dinner and relax for the evening.
The End?