The squirrels and I have declared a truce. It’s the birds that have my blood boiling these days.
There is a family of North American robins attempting to build a nest atop the bay window of our office in the front of the house. There is a ledge atop the window on whcih the robins have been depositing strands of dead grass and leaves, mud and other debris.
I first started seeing the debris there about two weeks ago. I brushed it off and went about my business. A few days later, there was more nesting material and I again brushed it away. I’d gone through this drill a couple of times, the grass and other material building up on the ground below a bench until the weekend, when I used the leaf blower to clear the area.
That was Saturday. By Sunday, much of the material was back — as were the robins.
It has become my morning ritual this week to chase the birds away and brush the nesting material from the window ledge, often doing it two or three times before heading off to work.
This morning, however, I must have cleared the window a half dozen times, watching as the birds circled around. One bird, with a couple of long pieces of straw in its beak, flew from the maple tree along the street to our roof to another tree in the yard and back. I would swear it was watching me, waiting for me to either go in the house or get in the car and drive off — a belief my wife shared.
In any case, I fully expect to get home tonight — well, I expect Annie to get home (I’m here late) — to find a full-bore nest in place.
Evil robins.
(Here is a very rough draft of a poem I’ve written on the entire escapade, at Hank Kalet’s Poetic Blues.)
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