Mau Mau-ing the Songbirds

Much like this writer, I want to be able to pick and choose which creatures visit the makeshift feeders I've placed on my fire escape.

At first, I was in the habit of putting out stale loaf ends instead of simply throwing them away, and I noticed that I had started to gather a small following of neighborhood birds. Encouraged, I began buying seed and filling bowls for my morning visitors. Pretty soon, I had a veritable Hicksian Peaceable Kingdom happening every morning. An avian be-in as it were.

I became interested in what I started thinking of as "my" birds, looking them up on Google to try to identify them. Mourning doves I was familiar with, and I welcomed their haunting "coo...coo...coo." Among the various plain brown sparrow-type birds, I noticed a couple of red-headed house finches, and was thrilled to spot another familiar flash of red, a male cardinal, who was soon joined by his mate (dun colored and not in the least flashy).

One morning, I looked out the window and surprised a squirrel foraging among the seeds for the choicest black sunflower seeds. I added whole peanuts to the bowls. Now, as soon as I open my screen in the morning, I can watch the squirrel scamper across fences and wires from two yards away. He used to wait politely at the bottom of the stairs on the fire escape for me to retreat back inside and close the screen, but I think we have a relationship now, because he runs to the top of the fire escape, turns the corner and waits a couple feet away until I've put out the nuts. Of course I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but I'm pretty sure the look in his eyes when I'm a little late is nothing short of insolence. He's since been joined by another squirrel, who joins him from the roof -- I can turn my head when I open the screen, and see him peering over the edge of the roof, waiting. He climbs down the ladder head first.

On my side of the window, when the birds are gathered, Mambo or Madison will hurry in a low crouch across the kitchen floor and jump onto the table by the window. They will sit there, just watching the birds. Mambo makes that "eck-eck-eck" noise that cats make, his tail making a slow, sweeping motion across the table. I think it's like television for him.

Now, if this all sounds bucolic, it was.

One day, I heard a ruckus outside the window, and when I went to investigate, I found a neighborhood pigeon strutting around the bowls. None of the other birds could be found. The next day, it seemed as if every pigeon in the neighborhood had discovered my open buffet, and now they are waiting there every morning, on the telephone pole and electrical lines behind the house, and before the other, nicer birds get a chance to have their morning feed, they swarm onto the fire escape. They're like the fricking Hells Angels. They fly in, chase all the other birds away, and basically ruin it for everyone.

It's just another reason to hate the damn pigeons.