The Bad Egg

The New Place is WILD!

The Ivy is Buckling our Bedroom Wall

The ivy grows so thick and strong on one exterior wall, it’s growing into the wall–it’s formed a crack on the drywall interior. It’s created a triangular ridge that has moved the floor tile, the phone line, the baseboard and the drywall. The crack runs from the floor to halfway up the wall. I estimate that within another couple of years the ivy will have punched through, bringing the suburban wilderness inside to sleep with.

When Pigeons Attack

The first full day after we moved, I went into the backyard and saw a pigeon fly low overhead and drop a white object. I picked it up. It was a hollowed-out half of a robin’s egg–the veins were still attached to the interior membrane, but the yolk was long gone.

I watched as the pigeon and its mate returned to a tall tree in the yard being choked by the same ivy that is pushing its way into the bedroom. The pigeons continued their massacre of the Robin’s nest. They pulled apart another Robin’s egg right in front of my eyes, flew over our backyard again and dropped the second empty shell onto the grass.

The robin parent’s could only flutter and cry nearby. The pigeons were too big, too violent, too intent on destruction to be stopped.

The robins flew off and the pigeons took over the nest.

Here’s a picture of The Pigeon, taken through a cloudy window … it is a pigeon, right?

Wild Suburbia

The house was vacant for over a year before we moved in. It’s about a mile or so from the American River. I think the combination of these two facts means that the wildlife essentially staged a coup and infiltrated the backyard so thoroughly, our only choice is to work towards peaceful cohabitation. Anything else we do might be seen by the wildlife as an Act of War–and I’m just not up for that kind of time commitment or effort.

Stay Tuned

I have a feeling the above incidents are just the tip of the iceberg; intimidation tactics meant to put us, the new trespassers, on notice.

We will not let them scare us into huddling inside the house, the backyard is too pretty to surrender. Some sort of truce will need to be agreed upon … but I’m afraid negotiations might get a little hairy.