Monday 2 October 2017

Ready, aim, splat

Ah, Spring!  A welcomed season from blistering cold winds that howled through the gaps in my old front window frames.  Spring means new life and nest building. Unfortunately my house has proven, year on year, to be a reliable host of our new mum and dad Starlings.  Like going back to the same seaside shack every year, they choose the inside of my front verandah roof with the late afternoon sun and a room with a view.  Whilst we've been known to be on the generous side with our own menagerie of bird life that includes a good proportion of bantam chickens and guinea fowls, I draw the line at bratty Starlings that outstay their welcome and crap all over the front of my house.  After a Sunday of washing down windows and removing bird pooh from the entrance of a very old weatherboard house that doesn't deserve such ill mannered treatment, I resorted to the only defence I know that doesn't involve a twelve gauge.  A bird of prey.  Now this little feller came from the hardware shop because apparently they don't sell either real or stuffed ones (to my absolute disappointment) and so with beady bright eyes and a plastic bobble head, he had to do.  So Bobble Head as he is now referred to, was placed on the verandah and told to ward off anyone bird like that refuses to see the sign, no room at the inn.  However unfortunately since Bobble Head was engaged in verandah duties, we've had some serious westerly winds come through which continue to blow him off his verandah perch, down the steps and into the rose bushes.  Initially I didn't want to secure him because the Starlings would wake up to that pretty quick and notice that he doesn't leave his post...'yeah, that old plastic bobble head trick, hah, hah, hah!'  So I went out yesterday to collect poor BH to find him rolling around the porch like he'd been on the sherry all night, and noticed that some brazen Starling had managed to plant one right on his head, in between his eyes.  I can only imagine what careful planning that took.  So having failed dismally with my bird of prey defence, I'm at a loss as to what to do with those recalcitrant Starlings with precision aim.  I wonder if the hardware store sells something, perhaps a little more concerning, like a Pterodactyl.  Don't suppose I could get a stuffed one anywhere?

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