birds

Battling The Bird-Brains

/ Diane Henders / 22 Comments

A few years ago, I wrote about my battle with marauding robins in our strawberry patch. At the time I was feeling smug because I’d just finished locking the robins out with plastic netting.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and the plastic netting had decayed in the sun to the point where the robins could simply push through it. Fine. We were ready for a permanent enclosure anyway.

We got the wire mesh and steel poles, and then I hurt my back and couldn’t pick strawberries anyway. The strawberry patch turned into a weedy mess, and the robins had their merry way with the remaining berries.

But then, inspiration struck: If I couldn’t pick strawberries from the beds on the ground, why not raise them? Strawberry gutters to the rescue! The berry-enclosure project was revived.

Fast-forward to this spring:

The berry enclosure now protects our strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries! The walls are chicken-wire and the roof is flexible netting. (We can’t leave a permanent roof in place over winter because of snow load.)

We installed the netting roof just as the strawberries were ripening, and I eyed the enclosure with satisfaction. Conveniently pickable berries; birds excluded. Perfect.

Not two hours later, I glanced out the window and spotted a bird in there.

After a moment’s chagrin, I decided we must have left a gap in the roof netting; or maybe on one of the side walls where the wire mesh overlapped. That should be easily remedied. I went out and battened down the hatches, then headed back to the house secure in the knowledge that my berries were now safe.

Two hours later: Another bird in the enclosure. What?

Out I went again. This time I spent a bunch of time kicking up a ridge of dirt all around the bottom of the walls, surmising that the birds must be ducking (or in this case, Spotted Towhee-ing) under the bottom of the chicken-wire.

Just as I finished that sweat-popping chore, the towhee came back and landed outside the enclosure.

“Ha! You’re outta luck, buddy,” I told him. “No more berries for you.”

As I turned away, a flash of movement caught my eye. In the instant it took me to turn back, the towhee was already perched inside on a berry trough. Taunting me with his reedy whistling laugh, the little bastard.

What the actual f***?!?

I’m embarrassed to admit how many more trips to and from the enclosure (now dubbed The Birdcage) were necessary before I figured out that the nylon roof mesh has larger holes than the chicken-wire. It still excludes fat robins, but the slimmer towhees can slip right through. The towhee figured that out in seconds. It took me several days. Who’s the bird-brain here?

The strawberries are just about finished for the season anyway, and the towhee isn’t as greedy and destructive as the robins; so we’ve decided to deal with the roof problem later. But now the towhee comes over and cusses me out every time I go into his berry patch.

Bird-brains. Sigh.

Book 18 update: Progress at last, woohoo! I’m on Chapter 7, and Aydan has just discovered something unsettling about one of her fellow agents.

Bird-Brains, My Butt

/ Diane Henders / 24 Comments

I love living out in the country where the air is a tapestry of birdsong and our little feathered friends forage busily in our gardens.  We have everything from the drab but melodic Hermit Thrush to the brilliant Western Tanager; the giant and crazily prehistoric-looking Pileated Woodpecker to the tiny Anna’s Hummingbird.  But unlike my blogging buddy Elephant’s Child, I don’t have any beautiful bird photos to show you.

And that’s my beef, right there:  No photo ops.  In fact, half the time I can’t even get to the binoculars.

I’d comfort myself with the knowledge that they’re wild birds so they never stay in one place for long; but that’s not actually true.  They’re not flitting around, alert to the slightest threat.  No; they’re flaunting themselves within full view of my windows, sitting there only a few yards away and preening.  Even the hummingbirds perch for minutes at a time.

But no matter whether they’ve just landed or they’ve been snoozing there for five minutes, the instant I head for the binoculars, the birds fly away.

One might argue that they’re getting spooked when they see my movement through the window.  I’d like to believe that… but I don’t. I can walk over and stand inches away from glass watching them, and they never ruffle a feather.

But just let me reach for the binoculars that live permanently in the corner of the living room, and the birds zip away, never to reappear until I’m at least ten paces away from the optics.

Reaching for the camera is even more futile.  That doesn’t even require any movement on my part — all I have to do is think about the camera and the birds take off.

So not only can they tell the difference between me casually crossing the room on my own errand, and me crossing the room to pick up the binoculars; but they can also read my mind.

Bird-brains, my butt.  Those little suckers are smart, and probably telepathic.  I just hope they don’t decide to organize and attack like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

But if there’s no blog post next week, you’ll know what happened.

*

P.S. Speaking of bird-brains:  Last night I had a great time presenting Write Your Book At Last at the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre.  But… at the end of my talk, I forgot to ask if anyone was interested in more in-depth workshops.  I’ve posted topic outlines on my Workshops page, but I won’t set dates unless there’s some interest.  Please drop me an email if there’s a workshop you’d like to attend.  Thanks!

Exciting news:  The audiobook for Book 2, The Spy Is Cast is now in production!  Its tentative release date is in October, and the rest of the series is scheduled to follow it into audio format ASAP.

And… I’m starting Book 15 this week!  Hooray!  🙂