Beware the Ides of March Bird

[Kevin]

    A favorite holiday tradition on this board is David C's beautiful story of the Christmas Bird.  We just had an avian visitor as well, but it wasn't quite as inspirational.  Late last night we heard noises from our dryer vent area, oh great, the annual nesting has begun.  For years, both in this house and our townhouse we would have birds nest in the vents.  The little housekeepers are very noisy with their squawks and scraping and fluttering as they go about their birdie business.  This of course starts before dawn, and the vents of course are near the bedroom.  Although this is not conducive to getting much needed sleep on weekends (we get up at about 5:30 AM anyway during the work week so its not as much of a problem), we grin and bear it til the little hatchlings fly away, we being too softhearted to wreck their nest.  Each year we also vow to install screens to head off the problem but alas other things such as laziness get in the way of good intentions. 

    Anyway, we thought here we go again, business as usual and settled in for several weeks of torment.  The noise was different this time, a bit more intimate, but as it stopped during the evening we promptly forgot about it.  At the crack of dawn this morning it resumed!  H-E-double hockey sticks! But wait!  It is actually inside the house, in the dryer vent pipe.  Now how do we get it out? Our laundry/furnace  room is very cramped limiting our plans of action.  Now we could just start the dryer to burn it out or let it starvebut being softhearted (and Headed) animal lovers we wanted to take him alive. I figured we could move the dryer out, undo the pipe at the top and quickly put a bag over the top to catch it when it flew up, but no dice, it stayed in the pipe.  Dang it !  Okay we will carefully undo the bottom and repeat the procedure but as soon as the pipe came out so did the bird, a grackle! beast most foul! came boiling out of the dryer and commenced flying madly around the confines of the (did I mention tiny) laundry room.  Think of Hitchcock's The Birds.
 
    We couldn't think of any way to catch it, and there were lots of little alcoves the beastie could get into, like the interior of the walls, so this was getting critical.  It was too early to call animal control, and the net I tried to fashion out of a laundry bag was failing miserably.  In addition, my rather extensive, OK, vast (I'm not really proud of the fact) repertoire of cuss words was almost depleted.   I was thus forced to do something I didn't want to do and always feel bad about afterwards.......go to Wal-Mart, the only place open and hope they had a fishing net in their sporting goods section.  They did, so I returned and made a lucky catch when Der Stuka-Grackle landed on a laundry basket after dive bombing me a couple of times.  With the bird safely ensnared, I released it out the back door with a kindly, parting admonition; "don't come back you b-----d!"

    The funny thing was through all of this the dogs paid almost no attention to this invader, even though a rabbit six backyards away or someone having the nerve to walk on the sidewalk across the street, will send them absolutely bonkers (except for Boone who is too laid back anyway).  They seemed more annoyed that we weren't still in bed.  We however, did finally put up screens over the vents so we would not get a return performance from Mr. or Mrs. Grackle.   Sometimes it stinks to be so softhearted.  We certainly get taken advantage of by wienerdogs! I must admit to having some simply dreadful thoughts going through my mind at the time on how to terminate a grackle with more than extreme prejudice.  But in the end I was glad to see it fly away little the worse for wear.  If it comes back however...  

[Brekkesmom]

Oh, my goodness!  Well, I guess you can be thankful it was a bird.  I had mice troubles, and there were lots and lots of them, caused by someone else who had to open the doors to the outside world after mopping the Pergo and tile floors, instead of letting the ceiling fans circulate and dry the floors.  I used glue traps - not too pleasant, but solving that problem over many months, unfortunately.  I  know it was compounded by the fact that there was digging and bulldozing in the field to the north of my house for the new little shopping center.

[Doxherding Karen]

Hey, if you're going to climb up there and put a screen on the vent, how about taking an "L" shaped piece of vent,  duct tape it to the roof next to the real vent and the birds could use it for nesting?

Only thing - if roofer ever go up, they're going to be a little confused/amused!!

Karen

[Frankys_mom]

Acck!
Sorry for your ordeal BUT that story was just too funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[David C.]

Been there...done that!

I think dachshies learn fairly early on that they can't catch those flying things, so why expend the effort.   Even Rudy, the most predatory of all my dachshies would only make half-hearted feints towards the birds in the yard, mainly just to make the fly off.

[Doxherding Karen]

Been there...done that!

I think dachshies learn fairly early on that they can't catch those flying things, so why expend the effort.   Even Rudy, the most predatory of all my dachshies would only make half-hearted feints towards the birds in the yard, mainly just to make the fly off.

It's really, "Excuse us, but if you want something caught in the air, get a border collie. 

We're dwarves, you know!

Sincerely - the "Wiener Board Wieners."
:2funny: