an owl in the hand is worth two in the bush

Last summer I worked from home quite frequently. During this time, each morning, a bird came up to the moon window in our living room where I set up shop and pecked incessantly at it. At first, I thought it was a robin as I could see quite a bit of red as it fluttered around, beak pounding on the glass.

Then, we had some yard work done. There were some volunteer and dead trees. We didn’t have the tools to remove them. The cost of the tools and getting rid of debris tipped the scale on having the, ‘Ground’s Guys,’ do this work. They also trimmed bushes and removed another. The price was very reasonable.

As we walked the yard talking about the tasks to be done, I discovered a cardinal pair had made their nest in an overgrown Manhattan Globe on the back of the property. Ah…so it was a cardinal tap-tap-tapping on my window! Cardinals are very territorial. Apparently one of the pair could see its reflection in the window and was hell-bent on scaring the other supposed bird away.

Thank God the dive-bomb tactic was not used.

How to scare away the skittish cardinal without costing an arm and a leg? The Internet!

I found several pictures of owls and printed 3. I cut them out and taped to the window. The cardinal barrage slowed and then stopped. The cardinal pair hung around until nesting season was over, then moved along. Whether it was the owls specifically that stopped the pecking or the now lack of reflection from the cutouts, I will never know. But at least, the birds stopped spending their energy defending territory from themselves.

No more knocking, knocking on wood…er…glass.

Some territory is not worth defending,

Zooey

1979 disco remake

Original. Start at :27 to skip the role play and get to the song.