The birds

There is something wrong with the birds in our back garden.  They are either eating something that doesn’t agree with them or they have a dirty campaign against us. 

It started a couple of years ago when they took a liking to our television aerial that sticks out above the apex of the roof and points south. It’s quite a substantial aerial which we had fitted so that we could receive the free view channels.  It is clearly a good place to perch and sing.  Unfortunately the aerial is positioned high above a garden bench placed nicely in a warm and sunny (?) spot and it also seems to be the ideal place from which to drop a small present onto the unsuspecting heads below.  Some say it’s lucky or a blessing when this happens to you but I doubt it.

Over the summer months the problem became more noticeable.   We had to clean the bench every day just to be able to sit on it.  A pleasant repose in the garden became an unnerving experience to such a point that we ended up moving the bench to a less favourable spot. 

This year though they have really upped their game.  A family of starlings has decided to nest under the tiles of the house roof right above the conservatory roof.  The adult birds and now the fledglings have taken to resting on the guttering and depositing their business across the glass panels.  Before the eggs had hatched the roof had to be cleaned on a daily basis but now, as the family has grown, it has to be cleaned as many as four times a day.  The whole thing is driving my wife mad and she has developed a profound obsession with the problem.  The guano is the only topic of conversation we have now and we mull over possible solutions and plans for hours, creating ever more desperate ways to exact our revenge.  We used to eat often in that room and now it has become off-putting to say the least.

The beauty of their plan, there is no doubt that they have a plan, is that they have chosen to nest in a spot which it is impossible for me to get to.  The conservatory roof is too fragile to walk on and the guttering cannot be reached by a ladder.  They have worked this out with geometric precision and have organised their bodily movements with all of the skill and discipline of a motorcycle display team.  Their synchronised defecation pattern is worthy of any military bombing campaign.

We’ve really had enough now, we’ve got to take some action and I’m going to hire some scaffolding.  Just you wait, I’m going to get them sorted out once and for all.  We are going to get our revenge.