The Grackles Are Back
I thought you'd never ask
If you survived what I affectionately call “the great taking” (aka COVID 19) without feeling a dramatic change in earths and nature’s innate cycles, then you might still be wearing one of those ‘kidnapping hoods’
mentions in her awesome post ‘Who makes those kidnapping hoods?’.
For 3 years it felt, to me, like everybody and everything everywhere took a long dramatic pause then someone shook our snow globe and knocked everybody and everything everywhere on our asses and we’ve still not put it all back together. Not only that, but it appears that the assembled pieces will never make the same picture again. This is what I call in change-management - THE NEW REALITY!
Enter, the grackles.
Credit: All About Birds
When we relocated 3 years ago, the new house had a pool. We had an above ground pool at our prior house and didn’t want another pool because we’re getting on in age and didn’t want the extra work. However, the house we could find in the time we had (speed relocation pitfalls - for another story) included an in-ground pool. The property is beautiful, but the pool! SMH
The back yard is full of shrubs and trees - trees the birds love to nest in. Our first month in the house was Spring, rung in by several mated pairs of grackles, who love to nest in the row of arborvitae trees next to the pool. They are part of the black bird family though distinguished by the iridescent colors on their heads and wings, and they are loud, busy, and fastidious.
Happy to be settled in, we opened the pool a little early, but this is where the story gets sticky. We quicky noticed giant piles of bird poop EVERYWHERE. This was not the occasional splat on the windshield of a car. It was all over the pool patio and IN THE POOL. It turns out these birds clean the waste out of their nests several times a day (see, fastidious), wrap it in a bag (paper or plastic?) and deposit it into the nearest body of water to throw predators off their scent. To say “Oh, no HELL no” is putting our reaction mildly. The battle began in earnest - sonic deterrents, stinky plants, smoky fires, etc. Nothing in our ‘relocation campaign’ worked on these stubborn birds. When the nesting was over, they were gone and we thought, ‘phew, we’ll tear out all the nests and they’ll go somewhere else next year.’
The second pool season we didn’t open early, and my husband bought a powerful but whisper quiet pellet gun to begin the battle anew. First, the grackles proceeded to make their mess all over the pool cover, which is covered in water throughout the spring until we remove it, uncovering the water. See the dilemma here? Second, I am widely known - throughout all sides of all families of which we are part - as a markswoman. For my concealed carry test I had 5 shots, 4 of which were in the same hole just right of the center of the target and the 5th was an inch or so off of that crowded hole. However, I stink with a pellet gun, most likely because my heart wasn’t in it and it turns out, neither was my husband’s. Third, the neighbors were putting in a pool next door. We thought, YAY! The birds will carry the mess further away in their anti-predator strategy. Wrong. Didn’t happen.
Now it gets interesting. During the pandemic, everything was so abnormal - people, places, rules, behaviors - the list goes on and on. With everything turned on its ear, I personally lost my tether to normalcy. The universal lodestone was missing for me. With it, I lost faith in man, in myself, and even in God. I quite literally lost my mind for a bit. That gross irregularity resulted in almost another year of abby-normal, defensive, oddly-odder-than-usual behavior from me - and that’s saying a lot! But as we settled into the new house and my new job some rhythm returned, bringing with it the bits and pieces of my sanity. As the second spring turned to summer and we biked through the hills, felt the crush of humidity almost year-round, lovingly decorated for Halloween, and rolled through the holidays perfectly made for reconnecting with humanity, my center stabilized it and calmed my mind (I will share some of that journey in future posts).
One of the stabilizing factors was normalcy, which I inherently associated with repetition. Beginning with the return of the grackles. By the third spring in the house, we almost had a welcome party for the grackles in our yard. There were 8 pairs by then, noisy and still quite fastidious. They still don’t use the neighbor’s pool, so we leave the cover on ours until they’re gone, hosing and sweeping up the mess weekly. It’s just so fucking normal I’m tearing up. Quite simply, I can’t do without it!
I’ll never again allow an external force, especially not one perpetrated by what I call the Dystopian Cyborg Mafia, to rob me of my center. If you’re struggling to regain your central strength, I recommend
to smooth the way. Her meme drops are especially awesome.Like our grackles, what signs of normalcy are you looking forward to in April?
Admittedly, I haven't the slightest clue about birds. But one thing I always appreciate is that every spring, they always seem to come at the first sign of warmth. In colder parts of the hemisphere, inevitably, there will always be one or two more freak snow. And when that happens, I always wonder: if the birds who came early a couple of weeks ago are okay. Every year this happens, and every year I wonder the same thing. And that, I think, shows its most unbreakable spirit.
Thank you for this story; I found my path to normalcy during the Pandemic through Nature and in particular my avian companions. And later through the squirrels.
Every day I rise at dawn, have my morning coffee and lay down seeds and nuts for my feathered and furry friends. This is a routine that keeps me grounded and sane. That and my avian companion, Arya the Cockatiel. If we are open to it, we humans can learn much from birds.
🕊🦜