Thursday, April 28, 2011

A No Construction Zone!

The other day, I looked out the bathroom window and noticed a robin sitting on the roof, looking around.  It jumped to the ground, looked around some more, and then jumped onto the faux craftsman lamp we have next to our front door.  It then flew back to the roof, back to the driveway, and then back to the lamp, obviously satisfied with itself.

"There's a bird out here thinking about building a nest," I told Mr. Ivy.

Nothing happened and we forgot about it.

Until this morning.  Mr. Ivy went to get the morning paper and, HELLO!, there was a fully built nest.  It wasn't there last evening.  After breakfast, Mr. Ivy went out and removed the next.  (He didn't tell me this, of course.)  Three hours later, I went out to put a letter in the mailbox.  HELLO!  There were all kinds of dead grass and sticks up on the light again.

Thinking it might be filled with bird cooties, I took off my shoe and Nest knocked the nest down, and went back inside.  "Mr. Ivy!" I called, rather annoyed.  "I thought you were going to remove that nest."

"I did."

"Oh, yeah!"

"Yeah!"

He came out and was astounded at how much work this robin had accomplished in just under three Light hours.  By the end of the day, I'm sure there would've been several eggs in that nest.  In order to discourage the bird, we put a heavy piece of broken patio block up there.  (You can never find a rock when you need one.)

Mrs. Robin was quite upset, as would any mother-to-be, but we didn't want to lose the use of the light, and the nest would've been a fire hazard, not to mention the bird poop that we would've had to scrub off the house and step (we've been there, done that).

Yes, it was all for the best.  So why do I feel so mean?