Poor Birds
Do you remember my post about the beautiful Yellow Crowned Night Herons who have built a nest in the neighbor’s yard? They are still there–there are two nests across the street, and two in the wooded school property diagonal from our house. We are not the only people in our town to have the pleasure of these birds choosing our neighborhood for a nest. Although it is unusual for them to wander far from their habitat (a wildlife refuge nearby), there are several other neighborhoods with nests as well.
In one of these neighborhoods, the residents are actually mad about the herons. And I’ll admit it–they do produce a LOT of poo. Seriously, you would be amazed if you saw the white splatters on the ground. I pity the soul who ever walks under one of these birds at the wrong moment. Anyway, back to this one neighborhood. They have complained that women can’t stroll their babies while the birds are there. Little old ladies don’t like the mess in their yards. And so they decided to do something about it. They called…someone. I don’t even know who. Someone with the city, I guess, and they came out and cut down the branch with the nest in it. They stranded three baby herons, and when someone called the extension to inquire what to do about these babies who were looking for their nest and their mother (who I’m sure was frightened and abandoned them), they were told to shoot them. Yeah, right.
I still don’t know what happened to the babies. The nest was just kicked across the street and left in disarray along the side. The mother is long gone.
And I am SO MAD! We are “inconvenienced” for six weeeks out of the year by having these amazing birds locate a nest in an unusual location. It is very rare that people even get to see these birds, much less have the privilege of them nesting right on their street, and bringing babies into the world, tending them and teaching them to fly! And what is our response?? “Oh! Help! There’s poop! Quick, call the police! Sound the alarm! Kill the birds, dismantle the nest, cut down the tree so maybe they’ll NEVER return!” That is just so callous. And I’m so disgusted.
Welcome to my nice, southern town. We hate birds…especially ones that poopl
June 28th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Yuck—not at the birds, but at the people who can’t tolerate their presence for a few weeks.
We have a family of some sort of mystery bird on our front porch. There’s a mom and dad and three chirpy babies living on top of our outlet box.
Sure, there’s poo on our porch, but we have a hose. The birds are welcome to stay until the babies are strong enough to fly away.