Bird Snob

I'm not too bad a one I guess.


I don't care for the way imported starlings nest in any opening they find in a building and make a big mess, but I can tolerate them.


 Not too crazy about rock pigeons (, which are really just plain old pigeons, the ones that you see in the park and also nest in barns) but they are beautiful fliers when they fling themselves across the sky just bursting with joy...and they can be kind of pretty tootling around on the ground too.


However, I hate, hate, HATE, English sparrows, or house sparrows if you prefer to be more PC about it. Personally I call them Sassenachs.


The drab little brown interlopers are very different from native birds though....and sneaky old bird snobs can use that to advantage. 


For example, they know I don't like them and they don't linger at the feeder when I go outside. Even the timid little titmice don't fly far, but the Sassenachs are much more wary. If I tap on the window when there is a huge assorted flock at the feeder, only they fly.


However this year a band of them has been marauding the feeders like nasty highwaymen stealing from the chickadee gentry. (Stand and deliver that sunflower seed). 


Being a busy little being I didn't deal with this situation until yesterday. It was sunny and pleasant so I hung the line full of clean laundry. Darned sparrows kept perching in the lilac bushes and then flying straight down that same clothesline to raid the feeder.


You know where that kind of thing leads.


I puzzled for a bit about how to stop them, since I am not fond of doing the laundry twice. Aha! An idea!


I keep a plastic great horned owl swinging in the breeze in the back porch door to keep the little $%%##@ from nesting on the porch.


I took it down and lugged it outside with a bit of old shoe lace and approached the lilac bush where they were perching smugly, waiting for me to go back inside so they could befoul my laundry.


Then they saw the owl. You never saw (or heard) such a commotion. They fled to the top of the tallest cedar tree where they set up an outrageous racket of alarm.


And once I had it swinging merrily in the lilacs, tethered at the top by the shoelace, they left and haven't come back.


I know they will become habituated to the owl and I will either have to move it or think of something else. But for now, revenge is sweet.


And best of all, a steady string of little native birds has continued to use the feeder all day. One bold chickadee even went over to the lilac bushes and sat two feet from the owl, scolding with all its might. Every so often he would glance over at me where I was hanging out more clothes as if to assure me that he had the threat in hand and I was safe from the nasty predator.


***Update, by yesterday evening some of them had figured out how to fly around the house the other way to get to the feeder, so my respite was short if sweet. At least they weren't using my laundry as a flight path.