Saturday, March 18, 2006

Damn birds!

So, you know when you have good intentions, and it all turns horribly wrong?

Now, as you know, I have recently moved into a fabulous new flat with a delightful garden. It's all very exciting, and I'm looking forward to the whole "actually keeping plants alive" thing that is the whole goal of having a garden.

I also get a fair bit of wildlife in my garden. There are foxes that use my garden as a pathway into the neighbour's place, which is very cool. There are also birds in my garden, which I do really like. I like the birds, for the most part. They're pretty and make lovely bird noises. You know, chirping and whatnot.

In my garden planning, I've been looking at furniture and plants and all sorts of things, but I decided what the garden really needed was a birdfeeder. You know, for the birds and whatnot.
I took a peek on eBay, and found a birdfeeder that looked very pretty. It had a flat tray for birdseed, three hanger things for hanging birdseed and a water tray. Perfect, say I! I bid on it, got it and within mere days it had been delivered to my house.

I went to my local Woolworths and bought some birdseed for the tray bit and and some hanging birdseed things for the hanging bits and put it all together.

And, I have to say, it looked pretty freaking good. I set it all up, and the next day, although I hadn't seen any birds yet, I noticed that the tray was empty.

The birds have discovered my feeding station, I though. Delightful!

I refilled the tray and waited in anticipation for my first bird sighting.

About a week later, I got it. I went to feed the fishes in the morning, and noticed some birds eating from the tray.

Was I delighted?

Sadly, no.

Because the birds that decided to visit my feeder? Pigeons.

That's right. I was the inadvertent feeder of the Balham horde of rats with wings. God damn.
So, now my back garden has become some kind of pigeon sanctuary. And I believe my hatred and/or fear of pigeons is well documented.

And so it happens, that as I was attempting to attract birds, now I have to figure out how to get rid of them. Because I haven't bought my garden furniture yet, but when I do, I don't want it covered with pigeon poop. Gross, gross, gross.

Such a disappointment. Stupid pigeons. Always ruining my fun.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You think the pigeons are bad? Just wait till the squirrels find your pretty feeders.

On the up-side, you will get to watch the ominous Squirrel/Pigeon war as it unfolds. In future days, you will be able to refer to it as the war of aught-six, and discuss the cunning infantry rushes, or the role of Air-power in controlling strategic feeder positions.

Or, you could just dust off and nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.



Sean

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Alice,

I guess this would be a bad time to tell you that we have a pet pigeon?

Her name is pigie and she is a real sweet natured bird that we keep in a large cage on the porch. The reason why we keep her in a cage is so she will not stop landing on peoples heads, for some reson she thinks that is what a head is for--a Pigie landing pad.

And as far as what Sean has said about squirrels getting into your bird feeder it can happen, my sister who had lived in Fresno had a problem with them doing just that. But if you put dried hot pepper into the bird feed it'll keep the squirrels out, and not harm the birds or pigeons at all.

Janice~

AB said...

The trick is to only have hanging seed feeders, cus the big fat stoopid pigeons can't land on them. What with them being big, fat and stoopid. You also might have to wait a while, the little birdies like to check out the new feeder before they use it. But it's well worth the wait, we have a family of blue tits that use ours, and every day it gets that bit cuter. Tweet tweet!

I think I need to get out more...