At War with the Birds

I made an amazing discovery last week. When a bird wants to destroy a structure, it does not, in fact, launch itself with a giant slingshot. Instead, it attaches itself to the wall and unleashes a torrent of beak-based pounding (BAMBAMBAMBAM!) until it bores a hole clear through it. Then it laughs, a sadistic twinkle in its beady little eye.

As I mentioned on Twitter, our house is under attack from a woodpecker. In the half-day it took to realize that the hammering noise was not the construction from next door, but in fact Satan’s own feathery minion, the beast had drilled a hole 3 inches in diameter through the wooden siding. It was a declaration of war.

According the ever-reliable Internet, this specific vandal was a Northern Flicker, a type of bird that doesn’t like loud noises or reflective surfaces. So my temporary plan was to hang a shiny, plate-like wind chime over the hole.

The next morning, he knocked it down and went back to work.

Next, we filled the hole (and the space behind it) with foam gap-filler. It was only stage 1 of Operation: Plug It Up, but I still gave a groan of anger and frustration when Woody reappeared and started banging on the foam. Stage 2 of that operation was filling the remainder of the hole with a vinyl-based concrete-patcher. Even the most persistent Flicker will think twice after banging his beak into a wall of concrete.

But if there’s a little space right next to the concrete… BAMBAMBAMBAM!

So now there’s a makeshift mobile hanging in the wind near the hole. It’s a shiny, noisy pie tin, twisting in the slightest breeze. The wall has been silent this morning, and I’m praying that we’ve won the war (for this year at least).

Because killing Flickers without a permit is illegal. And I don’t want to go to jail.