It’s 10.42 on a Sunday morning and I should be in bed, but instead I’m writing this blog filled with ambivalence.
Part of me is extremely annoyed that I’m wide awake on a Sunday morning and part of me is extremely relieved that I’ve just managed to get a wild animal the hell out of my Kitchen.
It started at 7.30 this morning when I was woken by my alarm which I’d set so I could get up and tape Match of The Day. I stumbled into my living room bleary eyed and as so often happens when I get up to tape MoTD, I end up watching it anyway.
So I’m sitting there enjoying the football and about half way through the coverage of the Arsenal v Wigan match (the one I was most interested in) when I hear a commotion in the kitchen. This isn’t unusual in itself as my flatmate’s cats are often fighting amongst each other, it basically sounded like they had gotten into the ever growing mountain of plastic bags under the kitchen table and were having some kind of cat wrestling match.
Not wanting to miss any goals (even though I was taping it) I ignored them. However the noise got louder and louder until I couldn’t ignore it any more, also the sounds reaching my ears weren’t all feline. I got up from the sofa silently cursing the bastard animals under my breath, as soon as I got into the corridor I saw a trail of feathers leading from the cat flap to the kitchen door.
The mental images I was reciving of a bird being ripped to shreds were enough to stop me investigating any further. I turned round immediately and went back to watching MoTD, hoping that the cats would have the good grace to kill and eat their prize, leaving the minimum amount of gory evidence.
The sound of bird chirping and rustling plastic bags got so loud that I was simply forced to turn up the TV and shut the living room door.
At this point I really didn’t want Match of The Day to end, because I knew the end would mean I would have to go into the kitchen and witness the horror of a partially eaten bird strewn all over the place.
So imagine my surprise when after the inevitable end of the program, after I finally plucked the courage up to go and have a look and I saw one of the cats standing guard outside. Inside the other mischevious moggy was sitting looking up at a bloody black bird perched on an open cupboard door above the sink.
Piss Off!
I was both freaked out and disgusted; I love my wildlife as much as the next man, but only outside never inside the house.
I gave the cat my most poisonous look and called it a bloody selfish bastard for doing this to me. It simply looked at me as if I was there to help it catch its prey.
As I shut the kitchen door and walked away I still had hopes that the inconsiderate little toe rags would catch and eat it. Deep down though I knew they wouldn’t. It became apparent that I would have to open the kitchen window; my dilemma as I saw it was that I didn’t really want to give the bird cause to start flying around and freaking out inside an already trashed kitchen.
Add to that, the bird being on the fairly large side, we’re not talking about no little tiny thing that I could have picked up in one hand, no we’re talking a fully fledged adult black bird with a long, pluck-your-eyes-out-type beak.
I stood outside the kitchen for a while running various scenarios through my head, most of them involving being inside a confined space with a bird intent on feasting on my eyeballs. I looked down at the cat sitting guard outside, and briefly contemplated picking it up and throwing it at the bird, but couldn’t work out how to do so whilst avoiding the eyeball plucking scenario and/or injuring the cat.
I knew it was the younger faster cat that had done this to me. I briefly wondered how the hell the thing managed to catch and bring in such a large bird without killing it; and why if it wanted to play with it why it couldn’t bite its wing off and do it outside?
Finally after staring at the cat for five minutes I realised it wasn’t going to help me. I opened the kitchen door slowly half expecting a furious avian attack, the bird turned to look at me as I walked in but stayed where it was. I kept it in the corner of my eye and approached the window and gently pulled down the top pane.
I then backed out and shut the door thinking that it would be glad for its freedom, but after leaving it for ten minutes and returning I found out it was in no obvious hurry to leave. I tried shouting at it, the general gist being piss off and leave me alone. It didn’t even flinch when I started barking like a dog, (thinking that instinctively this would be a sound that would make it take off) I swear the fucker was laughing at me.
Outside Help
I decided to ring the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) but being Sunday they weren’t there and they didn’t seem to have an emergency number, I called the RSPCA and they too weren’t in. I searched the net for some kind of bird rescue centre hoping that someone in an orange boiler suit could come and get it out of the house without further incident.
I even tried ringing 999 and asking if they knew what I should do, the tone in the woman’s voice told me that she thought I was a prat for potentially diverting her attention from a real emergency.
I rang number after number, I finally got a woman in a wild bird centre in Hornsey; I’d hoped that she would jump in her van with blue flashing lights race over and take care of the bird. These hopes were raised when she said that the bird was in shock and probably needed an antibiotic shot.
‘Excellent!’ I exclaimed ‘come over and give it one and while your at it get the flea ridden beast out of my house’, but instead she started boring me with the details of her life, at one point she even suggested; with no hint of a joke, that I catch the bird and put it in a cab and send it to her so that she could administer an antibiotic.
She then proceeded to tell me how a similar thing had happened to her husband and how that had resulted in her entire house becoming covered in bird shit; thanks for that!
The best bit of advice she gave me was to put some food on the window ledge, thus encouraging it to the window; I tried this and I swear the bird looked at me like I was mad.
I carried on searching for help on the internet; surely the internet wasn’t going to let me down? There’s an answer for everything on the internet and so it was just a matter of searching, I thought.
Success!
I found the number for the Mayhew Animal and Bird Hospital in Kensal Rise, less than half an hour from me. They surely would come and help me, wouldn’t they? A resounding no, the lady was pleasant enough but informed me that they didn’t do call outs and if I wanted to bring the bird in after capture I was welcome.
Why was I continually getting mistaken for someone who gave a shit about the bird's welfare? I didn’t I just wanted the airborne disease carrier out of the place where I prepare food, her suggestion was that black birds react to light and so if I could somehow manage to black out the bottom half of the window it might fly out.
I was thinking that the broad daylight thing might just hamper me in that particular endeavour so I went back into the kitchen and started throwing bits of bread out of the window trying to show the creature that it was open and that it could leave anytime it wanted;
again with that look.
I rang round a particular friend asking him for his ex girlfriend’s number as she struck me as the kind of person that would be good in this situation, he of course wasn’t awake.
I went back into the kitchen and saw that some of the bread I’d put down had gone, I wondered if he’d flown over and got it and flown back to his perch. That was the last straw, I started pointing towards the window and making encouraging noises, finally it made a move like it was going to fly.
‘Yes that’s it little fella, off you go’ and then the sound of a crow outside; ‘that’s it, that’s one of your mates, go on, piss off!’ I started flapping my arms like a bird, trying to make my dressing gown look like the wings of an eagle and finally it got the message. It squeezed out a little bird poop and flew off into the distance.
On Guard!
Now I’m sitting here contemplating guarding the cat flap and stopping this from ever happening again, but I can’t sit there forever. Every time I hear it swing open now I’m there like a shot ready to force the cat back the way it came.
The flap sits there at the bottom of the door almost glowing like some sort of gateway to hell, forever threatening to disrupt my peaceful Sunday idyll.
What other live bit of wildlife are these damned creatures going to bring in?
Who knows, but hopefully it’s after tomorrow when my flatmate and the owner of these annoying little bastards returns from holiday, and he can bloody deal with it.
Angry Man
This post was originally on my Myspace page circa '06
HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO DEAL WITH ERRANT WILDLIFE IN YOUR HOUSE? WHAT HAPPENED, DID YOU SUCCESSFULLY GET RID OF IT? OR PERHAPS YOU ARE SOME KIND OF DR DOLITTLE TYPE, WELCOMING IN WOODLAND CRITTERS INTO YOUR HOME ON A DAILY BASIS?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Title image: Ruth Caron on Unsplash