It’s happening again. The skies are blackened by swarms of winged devils. The calm of early mornings and twilight reveries vibrate with evil squawks. The treetops sway under the weight of thousands of single-minded beings. They come to procreate on my property and then raise their young, whose waste will be spread across my backyard, fouling the space so completely it will be June before we can go outside. I’m reminded yet again that Mother Nature rules, and we mere mortals droll as we watch her creatures fly through the skies and land in our woodlands for another season of ‘Sex in the Pines.’
It wasn’t always like this. In 1990, when we purchased our patch of paradise here in Mattapoisett, we spent springtime in joyful pursuit of gardening. First, there were the weekends of yard cleanup, then the preparation of the flowerbeds, and finally the pleasure of planting. Oh, that sweet earthy smell of freshly tilled soil and newly spread mulch would fill our heads with “Ode to Joy” as we blithely danced across the lawn like garden fairies. But not any longer … for the last three years we have been preyed upon by (think dark ominous music) THE GRACKLES!
We’d see these denizens of the dark underworld in the village and marvel at their boisterous clans as dusk rolled in off the water. They were just part of the fabric of scene; we thought nothing more of them.
Then one early spring afternoon as I lay in my hammock reading and alternately nodded off, my trance-like nap was sliced through by the noise of hundreds of grackles. I opened my eyes and after some effort adjusting my aging eyesight, I saw in the canopy above the shadowy shapes of birds, lots and lots of birds. At first I marveled at the spectacle, thinking ‘isn’t that grand,’ but then, as if on cue, these flying manure machines began to sprinkle their off-springs’ waste sacks across my lawn and bomb the bird bath. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Apparently the mother birds’ manual on good housekeeping states that the nest must be kept clean for the health and wellbeing of the babies and that tossing the cruddy crap crates into a body of water is best. The pool cover, with a pond of spring rain in the center, was taking the brunt of the assault and had become in a single afternoon a sewer treatment plant. Hitchcock would have loved this.
As I lay there contemplating what my recourses might be, I reasoned that if I could disrupt the nests and wreck a little havoc on the cozy condominium complex these unwelcomed neighbors had built in my trees, they would leave and never return (“She is a crazy lady. The babies aren’t safe here. Let’s head for Haskell’s Swamp.”). I decided to take action.
Near at hand was the long-handled pool strainer. With a pole approximately 15 feet long and a square paddle-shaped strainer on the end, I figured I could do some serious suburban renewal on the nests. I grabbed the tool and began whacking the arborvitaes like a bass drummer in a marching band. Nothing happened. I sensed thousands of tiny eyes looking down on me with mild amusement. Not one single bird budged from its perch.
I would not give up so easily. Wasn’t I a member of the top of the food chain club? Don’t I possess a brain bigger than an acorn with complex cognitive capabilities? Yes, I will dislodge these interlopers, these unwelcomed guests and they will away to someone else’s yard. With each successive whack, I let out a grunt that sounded sort of Yeti-like or at least what the Big Foot hunters claim one sounds like. Nothing happened. I was merely working up a sweat.
I like to believe that I have great stores of persistence in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. After all, hadn’t I completed the Fourth of July 5K in 1991 by speed walking, this in spite of overhearing someone on the sidelines comment “…that one isn’t going to make it very far…” I not only finished the race, but I did so in less than 60 minutes – a personal best for yours truly. Go stick that in your pipe and smoke it. I wasn’t giving up, not me!
By then, however, my arms were getting very tired, my shoulders had all but collapsed into my rib cage, and my neck was locking up. Then from somewhere on the edge of the battlefield, I heard a small voice say, “Hi Mrs. Newell, whatcha doin’?” I slowly lowered my weapon and my sightline and found a tiny neighbor standing nearby. With as much grace as a crazed person can summon in a moment of extreme mental agitation, I replied, “Oh, hi Mikey.” He wore a puzzled expression that warranted some sort of reasonable response from me. I attempted to gently place the pole on the ground, pretending it was normal to be swinging it overhead and slamming it against trees. I then said, “Well, you see Mikey, all these birds are pooping in my yard…” and before I could elaborate further he scampered off calling to the other kids, “Hey, wanna see Mrs. Newell kill the birds!” Mercifully, he didn’t return. I suspect watching ants come and go from an anthill was more of a draw for the little boys than witnessing a mentally deranged grandmother’s attempt at javelin tossing with a piece of pool equipment.
We spent the next few weeks hiding in our sunroom, unable to enjoy our backyard as the baby birds matured and excreted increasing volumes of poop with every passing day. The pool cover was now beyond redemption. The birdbath was empty and caked with thick white-gray masses and the lawn was thoroughly covered with drying crap bombs. I wanted to weep.
But then one afternoon, as we sat stoically yearning inside our sunroom wishing we owned a low maintenance parcel versus what we had created, our version of Versailles, I became aware of the quiet. “Hey honey, I don’t hear those damn birds screaming,” I remarked. My husband listened and concurred, “Yup.”
It was over. The babies had flown the coop, and the adults were off to their vacations in other wooded areas. We ventured outside to clean up the mess not unlike that left behind after a massive spring break party.
We spent the balance of the warm season enjoying our yard and pool and reminiscing about how horrible the early spring had been, our suffering at the beaks of those filthy birds, and how we would never stand for it ever again.
How wrong we were. The following spring the now grown-up babies from that first generation descended upon us, returning to repeat what their kind do – pair-up and mate, and breed a new generation of poop-copters. But we weren’t ready to surrender.
We hit the internet searching for any type of guidance or tool we could find that might dissuade the grackles from using our yard as a maternity ward. My husband became so incensed that he was willing to spend any sum if the purchased item worked. Soon we had a machine that emitted a series of predator bird calls. Falcons, hawks, eagles – their screaming, terrifying calls peppered air waves and reverberated throughout the neighborhood.
At first, we were sure this expensive gadget was working. We didn’t see any birds of any type for about a week. In the meantime, we placed owl and hawk decoys around the yard and even set a string of predator balloons hovering above the pool’s surface to discourage the unlawful dumping. We were moderately encouraged by the result. Sure, we had to listen to the recorded hollering of hawks and falcons, but we didn’t care. Better that than piles of poop. But our joy was short lived. The nasty packets appeared anew. The grackles had quickly learned that although the place was full of scary sounds, scary things didn’t happen.
Crestfallen, my husband made one final attempt at dislodging the flying vermin by employing an air horn. He blasted away, sending ear-splitting noise up to the heavens. Nothing happened. The grackles simply looked down on him and gave him the one-feather salute.
As we face another spring, we have mixed emotions. On the one hand, we love the sunshine and warmer temperatures. On the other hand, we watch the birds gather nesting materials and fly up into our trees, mocking us as they take up residence for the season.
One result of aging is learning to deal with limitations. Generally, these limitations are in the form of bodies no longer willing or able to perform tasks. But in our case, we take that one step further: We accept that the animals have won. The deer have eaten our bushes and left piles of brown marbles across vast expanses, the cats in the neighborhood prefer our flowerbeds to kitty litter, the woodchucks will burrow under the shed and eat our flowers, as will the rabbits with more digested vegetation sprinkled around. And last but not least, the grackles will once again raise their young whose poop we’ll clean up so we can sit outside. Whoever coined the phrase “S – – T happens” can’t possibly know how right they were.
(P.S. No animals were harmed during the writing of this story.)
By Marilou Newell
