Pages

Thursday 25 April 2013

Natural Remedies for Natural Problems

Nature is many things, but most people would not say that Nature is "predictable".  Nature is usually viewed as being wildly variable while operating within the loose confines of a schedule.  What I mean is we all know Spring follows Winter, but nobody knows when it will arrive. Case in point, last week it snowed.  This time last year, we had had a week with temperatures hovering around 25C.  Twelve years ago when my son was born, it was 30C.

But some things, like bird migrations, you can almost set your watch by.  Last year, on April 23, I wrote about dealing with a Northern Flicker hell-bent on living in my dining room walls.  We used a pellet gun to persuade her over a couple days that she really wanted to live somewhere else.  After the (considerable) damage, we filled the holes with spray foam but discovered that spray foam doesn't do much to stop rain.  We now have leaks around the frames of three windows.  The repair  will actually be quite a big job and is on a list of things to do.



Anyway.  It's April 25 and guess what.  The bird is back - probably the same one too.  I have three new holes in the back of my house.  We still have a pellet gun but I might have stumbled onto a much better deterrent   I have a cat; not a particularly good mouser and I've never seen her catch a bird, but a cat nonetheless.  She is sitting right at the edge of the window above where the bird is banging on the wall.  They can actually see each other.

You know what else I learned about nature?  Birds won't build a nest right under a predator's perch.  Kitty just earned room and board for another year.

1 comment:

  1. You have my heart-felt sympathy about your resident flicker. We used to live in a log house that had a cedar shingle roof. We loved that house, but unfortunately so did the neighbourhood flickers. I'm glad your cat is doing a good job at scaring it away!

    ReplyDelete