Rotary Park, Wentzville, MO~
We are under attack by summer tanagers.
They hate the Airstream. They peck at the roof, flutter against the windows, claw at our screens and sharpen their bills on our propane tanks. If we step outside it’s all Alfred Hitchcock for a moment before they retreat to the treeline.
We have absolutely no idea why they hate the Airstream. We also have no idea why the tanagers seem to be the only species of bird here that hate the Airstream. There are cardinals, towhees, various other members of the finch family, plenty of sparrows and even owls. The tanagers are the only ones with this incredibly specific and bizarre personality flaw and I must say it’s not very becoming for an otherwise elegantly plumed bird.
At first we were concerned for their health, as they were knocking themselves stupid against the trailer, but after three consecutive days of this behavior it’s become hard to be particularly sympathetic. They start promptly at 6am and continue until about 9pm when presumably they go roost someplace.
There are three males, two adult and one juvenile. The two adults station themselves at either end of the trailer. The juvenile pecks on the roof. There is an adult female also and she started getting into the act yesterday evening until Alex came up with what seems to be a foil for the adults, placing a goopy mix of bacon grease and peanut butter on slabs of wood and covering the perches they are using as staging areas. This has done nothing to deter the juvenile, who is still on the roof, doing his best impression of a hailstone. When we go outside to shoo him away he flies to the treeline and chatters at us, really giving us an avian what-for.
We’re waiting to see if the influx of people to the fairgrounds this weekend proves a deterrent, but we’re not holding our breath. At this point we half expect to see them seated in our front row for all of our shows, throwing popcorn and shouting “DO SOMETHING!” Considering the disdain they show for our humble aluminum home it honestly wouldn’t surprise us in the least.
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Bacon grease and peanut butter sounds like the foundation of a good bird snack! Just add seed, and the birds may be your friends forever! Or at least until the food runs out…
I sympathize…with you, not the birds… We’ve had alternating years of a cardinal and a bluejay flying themselves into our window for a long time now. Their pictures must be in the dictionary next to “insanity.”
Hello to both of you!
Harold, we placed the mix on their perches so they got it in their feet and feathers. They didn’t like that at all and gave up their spots. I don’t think they actually ever tasted it.
The little pecker (pun intended) is still here. On a schedule yet.
Megan, I think your birds and our birds should form a bowling league. And off topic, have you gone to see Prince Caspian yet? It ROCKS.
I have seen Prince Caspian…But I’m afraid I thought it rather *loosely* based on CSL, and not so much in that spirit as I’d hoped. Still good in it’s own way, though…