Bird Hazing

Everywhere is a potential nesting site for birds. Although we like birds they have a habit of being noisy and dirty.  They also dive bomb you if you get close to their nest. We typically tear down the start of their nests before they lay eggs.  This one we missed. Nests are built in record time. Sometimes they are completed within hours with two birds working on a nest.

The Tropical Mockingbird mother has not been in the nest for weeks. I think they have abandoned this nest...with no assistance from us. Since it's 95 degrees outside you would think they don't need to sit on eggs to hatch...but they do.

The Bananaquit or "sugar thief" birds have been trying to build a nest in our wall art (see the twigs in the lower right sail boat). We have been tearing the twigs out of this area for two days.  Within an hour of the last cleaning they had already rebuilt.

And then there are the parrots.  They have come this year in force to eat from the mango tree. They squawk from early morning to late sunset. One day, Rick got 900 steps before breakfast just chasing them out of the tree. Our hazing only lasts seconds and they are back in the tree. They are protected so we can't be too heavy handed in our hazing.  We are considering a water gun.

 

They leave behind poop, mango seeds and half eaten mangos. This yearly event we call The Mango Wars.

We also have hummingbirds that cause no trouble at all.  They are tiny, tiny birds that feed off our flowering trees.  They are the darlings of the yard and need no hazing.  We wish we had more of these sweeties.