Thursday, June 04, 2009

The bird that wont stop squawking

I concede I may not be the most patient person in the world. Some individuals may even choose not to use the words patient and Vanessa together in the same sentence fearing that a confusion of a tight-bonded relationship might be misconstrued. I am painfully aware of my lack of patience, but I would like to make the case for another quality which I DO posses which I see as equally beneficial; tolerance. I may not have an abundance of patience but I am tolerant, laid back even. Don't get me wrong, I will get angry, but in general, I let most things that I find irritating slide like melting butter down my back. An unlucky few people have seen my claws unleashed, and to those I apologize, but those few times are greatly out-numbered by the many incidents that could have been disastrous situations.

I mention this now, because I have recently encountered an arch-nemesis and my tolerance which is normally high as I mentioned above has been depleted. This arch-nemesis has come in a wickedly clever disguise for he is part of nature, something for which I have a deep love. He is a bird, but don't be deceived by the images that flood your mind when you think of little adorable love birds, this monstrosity which happens to also have wings is the most annoying bird to grace this planet. Normally I love the sounds of birds chirping, their calls are soothing and musical, but my bird, my villain's call is a far cry from soothing, rather his call is grating, like metal against metal or nails on a chalkboard. The noise he makes reminds me of a broken wheel on a cart such as you would find in the grocery store, high pitched and repetitive. It is an agonizing sound which sends shivers down your back. It is right at that level in the sound spectrum that is close to unbearable and feels as if someone is repeatedly jabbing my eardrum with a searing red-hot poker. It is something that you might try to ignore in the beginning, but as you continue to push the cart and hear that irritating, ear-numbing noise over and over and over again, you realize that the sound is slowly sending you over the brink of insanity. At least with a push cart, you can choose to switch carts once the noise gets to be too much for one person's ear to handle, but he lives outside my room, he has invaded my personal space. I have dreams, nay fantasies of loading a shotgun and shooting him from his perch. I have never even seen with my eyes my tormentor but I imagine that he is an ugly, oily rodent with wings and blood red, squinty and harassing eyes. I know what your thinking. You think that I am displacing my anger of our (kyle's and mine) tiring and frustrating situation on a poor innocent bird. And that could possibly be true, but if you woke up to this bird's high pitched screeching at 6 am in the morning, only to hear it again at lunch time every day, you might go a little bonkers and have violent, unwarranted fantasies as well.
I wish I could tell you exactly what kind of bird he is so that you might give me suggestions as to how to be rid of him without a violent crime, but I have never seen the pest, only heard him. However, any suggestions would be appreciated.

Below is my attempt at trying to record his screeching. There are two things to keep in mind, a) excuse my face, it looks awful as I had just broken out, b) the noise is not as loud in the recording as it is in real life.

5 comments:

kay said...

This reminds me of the movie "Failure to Launch". Her room-mate has an ongoing battle with a Mockingbird. She hears about the book To Kill a Mockingbird and decides she HAS to buy it!! LOL
She and her boyfriend end up shooting it with a BB gun only to rush out and try to save it with mouth-to-mouth.
I have heard that you should buy a fake owl and put it in a tree or on a window sill. I'd send you one but it would cost 4X's as much to send it to you.

Warren Baldwin said...

Yes, I heard him. It came across very clearly on the recording. Unfortunately, I loved the sound! If you looked at some of the pictures on my blog of sw Kansas, we don't have many places for birds to hang out and sing! So, I was quite envious when I saw all those trees you have!

Thanks for the comments on the "wildlife" display on my blog. It is a lot of fun doing those programs for the schools. wb

LadyFi said...

Oh dear! We have a lot of your bird's cousins over here. They spend all summer screeching and pooping at ungodly hours!

Unknown said...

I know what you mean. Not fun after 5 minutes straight right?

Visiting from BPOTW. Nice post!

John
http://johnandstevearehavingababy.blogspot.com

BPOTW said...

Oh, dear, I don't envy you! Hopefully, things will turn around for you soon.


Thanks for linking with BPOTW this week!