My Love/Hate Relationship With A Bird

We have many birds that visit us.  Cardinals, finches, blue jays, bluebirds, robins, red winged blackbirds, & quite a few birds we don't recognize.  We also have swarms of unknown dark gray birds that fly in here like locusts swarming Egypt prior to the exodus.  They swarm down on one section of the yard, apparently find bugs to eat, & then a few minutes later swarm to another place in the yard where they find more bugs.  Swarm & repeat.  They are welcome visitors even if you sometimes can swear you're living in the middle of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  You know the one.  We also have cowbirds from time to time.  They must be the devil's pets because they are brood parasitic.  This means they watch when other birds lay eggs in their nests.  Then the cowbirds fly in when the parents leave for a time & they lay their eggs in with the others.  When the eggs hatch the baby cowbirds grow faster & bigger than the other baby birds & they push them out of the nest.  Also, the cowbird parents often keep an eye on the nests after laying their eggs in them.  If they see that the owners of the nest push out the cowbird eggs, the cowbirds will then come in & destroy the owners' eggs!  I have never liked it when one group of people (or animals or birds) are mean to another group.  Therefore I don't like cowbirds.  The purpose of my writing this post, however, is to talk about a particular blackbird that has robbed me of my very favorite old grater.

See that blank bit of wall above the piggie salt & pepper shakers?  That's where my favorite old grater used to hang.  It was also my first old grater.  I don't have many graters ... I don't really need a lot ... but I'll miss that one.  

By now you are probably wondering how a blackbird robbed me of my favorite old grater.  Well, we happened to notice a couple days ago that this one blackbird was hopping in & out of our gutter at the corner of the porch precisely where the downspout attaches.  At one point we noticed that she was flying little bits of grass & other debris up there & I mentioned to John that she must be making a nest.  On the one hand I felt sorry for her.  Obviously she was brain wave deficient choosing to build her nest in a gutter close to a downspout like that.  Didn't she know that one good rain would wash away her nest & her eggs?  We were also concerned that the nest was going to block the gutter &/or downspout & then we'd have drainage problems.  We decided that we needed to put a stop to this.  Yesterday we got the ladder & John climbed up in order to remove the nest but there wasn't one.  It seems she was maybe trying to build one by filling up the downspout with debris until it all got high enough to actually support a nest.  Not a good thing.  John was able to pull a few lengths of dried pampas grass out of the downspout but couldn't really see or reach anything else.  I brought him out a pitcher of water & he poured it into the downspout & it drained without a problem.  We figured that our tampering in the area would discourage her from returning to her nest building attempts but it didn't.  We no sooner put the ladder away & came back inside than she was hopping in & out of the gutter again.  I suggested that the next time we go to Lowes we should get some screening to put over the downspout opening before she blocked it up.  This morning I was in the kitchen making tea & heard her singing.  Sure enough she was flying into that area, dropping off debris, & flying back out again only to return with more.  Since Lowes is a bit of a drive ... & John was too impatient for me to think of an alternative ... he duct taped my favorite old grater in the gutter over the downspout opening.  When we came back inside she flew immediately up to the area, looked around, & then flew away.  We haven't seen her since.  It seems the old grater is doing it's job but I miss seeing it hanging on that bit of wall.  Oh sure, I could find a replacement grater.  I could even use one of the ones you see there in the photo which were unfortunately too wide to put in the gutter.  However, it wouldn't be the same   : (   

For those of you who may be wondering, yesterday indeed was spent snuggling in my recliner, eating chocolate, & taking a nap.  Today it is sunny & warm & as soon as I click on Publish Post I am heading out to start work in the garage.  I will even take before pictures so you can see what I'm dealing with.  I hope you will find something a bit more fun to do today   : )   Although cleaning out the garage is not technically what anyone would deem to be "fun" ... it will make things look nicer out there, I'll get rid of some things I no longer need or want, & I'll have a great feeling of accomplishment when it's all done.  Sounds good to me   : )