Kylie and Birds

In a weird ironic twist of events, something happened to me today that I told Kylie with a sarcastic laugh and a grin, “That just won’t happen, honey. Get over it!” I am going on the record and saying that I am wrong and I will treat Kylie’s feelings with more respect.

Now, onto the story. Kylie is deathly afraid of birds. It starts in the spring when the very active neighborhood birds start coming around. They do get pretty aggressive and have tried to dive-bomb us on many occasions. We even went as far as putting cayenne pepper around our covered patio to keep them away. I really might have to do that again after today. Okay, so she is so afraid of birds that she will not go out in the backyard to play or jump on the trampoline unless I am standing right beside her at all times. Even then, she looks paranoid and ducks when she sees a bird out of the corner of her eye. It was getting ridiculous!!

I had the back door cracked the other day and she went over there and slammed it and said, “This door needs to be closed COMPLETELY at all times!!” Okay. That’s when I told her that birds were just as afraid of us as we were of them and there was NO way that a bird was going to fly into the house. “IMPOSSIBLE”, I said.

Well, today, while I was at home relaxing before the carpool at the end of the day, I learned my lesson. I had the back door open, was reclining in the chair reading a book, when a MOCKINGBIRD flew into the house and up into the skylight in the kitchen. My heart jumped out of my chest and Daisy started barking like crazy. When I say “flew into the skylight” I mean, a HUGE skylight that even I couldn’t reach with a ladder. The bird was flapping all around trying to get out of the top of the skylight, feathers and poop were littering the kitchen below, and I was doing bird calls trying to get that thing to come down and go out the back door!

It really was a good thing that Kylie was not there or we would have had to take her to a psychologist right then and there. I was a little freaked out so I called Animal Control in the nearest big town I could think of. The guy on the line said, “Hmmm, those can be tricky to get down.” LIke that is really something that I want to hear right now. I guess he’s not the problem solver at home. He also told me to put a ficus tree near the door and then call my local Animal Control team which I didn’t even know existed. I ended up putting the tree on the island underneath the skylight and.... nothing. I finally called our town’s AC and they were there in less than 30 minutes.

Two women, a stick and a ladder later, that bird flew right out the back door. I spent my relaxing time today cleaning up feathers and poop. There cannot be any sign that a bird EVER entered our house for Kylie’s homecoming tonight! I am right there with her on the bird thing and that door will be closed COMPLETELY at all times from now on!