Remember a couple of weeks ago when I was rhapsodizing about the bird sounds of New Zealand and how I have found a deep and abiding love for all things avian and how these are not the kind of evil, unimaginative American birds that tweet the same damned sound over and over again all the day long?
Well, jinxing is real, because the past few days I have been subjected to endless bird-based torture.
Some form of dull, unimaginative, plebeian, single-chirp-sounding bird has fashioned a nest directly under the eave of the roof above our master bedroom. That in and of itself would be pretty annoying, but these boring birds took it a step farther: they laid eggs and reproduced.
By my count there are now at least five distinct birds living somewhere about nine feet above where I sleep. How have I estimated that number? Because when mama or papa bird returns to the nest with some sort of food starting in the vicinity of sunrise at quarter to six in the morning, each of those eager little mouths starts tweeting their demands for food. In the clamoring chorus, I think I can hear at least three diminutive birds chattering in disharmony like an elevator bank where each of the arrival chimes is slightly out of tune to the others.
It is quite specifically my idea of personal sound pollution hell. If you had asked me a week ago when I was making that lovely, charming post about birds what the worst case scenario of birds would be, I would have described THIS EXACT SITUATION.
How long do these unimaginative birds nest before the little ones get kicked out to live on their own? Weeks? Months? We initially mentioned the nesting sounds to our landlord the moment we moved in purely out of concern for the roof, but now I have to be the absolute monster who demands that an entire nest of defenseless young birds be ousted from their home so I may sleep more soundly…
…and I am totally okay with being that monster, but now I’m worried these are going to be some sort of special, endangered, protected brand of boring New Zealand birds and our rental is going to be rezoned as some sort of special nature preserve area and these birds are actually multi-generational cohabitants that will have several sets of young living in one nest and I’m going to have to live with the sunrise wake-up calls from now until we move out of this house.
All because I was feeling mushy and wrote one damned nice post about birds.