Backstory for this is in order. A few years back when I first setup a bird feeder I had troubles with grackles and starlings. So much to the point that they needed some 'special' encouragement before they found elsewhere to disturb. Unfortunately the neighbors children discovered the results one day, a starling that had a heart attack much like the horse from Animal House had. It wasn't their yard that the discovery was made, but thankfully by that time things were settled.
Flash forward to this week. Today I go out to finish up the axle seal job on the rear of my truck since I was essentially rained out last night by a particularly windy storm. Our local animal control is parked just past my fence. A few children and an adult are present staring down into a box along with the officer, and of course once they leave the officer I walk up out of curiosity. Originally I'd made the assumption that they'd found a litter of kittens, or maybe even a rare city born groundhog. Try not to laugh, we did in fact have a person living next door to these people that actually had a family of groundhogs removed just a month or so ago. I was wrong on all accounts.
Down in the box was a nest ever so conveniently placed in an old black ash tray with 3 baby birds. My best guess is they were robins. The story animal control was told before I approached was I was responsible for the mess since I have air rifles. He kindly informed them unless they had video of me doing something that everything was hearsay, but also felt the need to tell me that shooting pest birds was animal cruelty since it was a popular issue that it would probably make the news. Of course I explained to him the most I do these days in the city limits is use my 1377 pistol with no pellets to scare the birds away, much like fire crackers would, and that anytime I do serious pesting its performed out in the county.
So yeah I've become 'that' guy in the neighborhood. Never mind the neighbors and the children that label me 'cruel', or 'mean' while they completely tossed a cat out to be a stray once their kids got over the 'new pet' feeling. The poor thing has since adapted to being a community cat since a neighbor much further down the street and my parents have taken up feeding the non-ferals. Also never mind the fact that the children who should know way better than to pick up baby birds by now did more damage to the poor creatures by moving them than leaving them.
I apologize if this this whole thing seems out of place and more like a rant, but I imagine there have been more than a few of us who have had something like this happen to them, and honestly I'd like to know how everyone else handled things.
Flash forward to this week. Today I go out to finish up the axle seal job on the rear of my truck since I was essentially rained out last night by a particularly windy storm. Our local animal control is parked just past my fence. A few children and an adult are present staring down into a box along with the officer, and of course once they leave the officer I walk up out of curiosity. Originally I'd made the assumption that they'd found a litter of kittens, or maybe even a rare city born groundhog. Try not to laugh, we did in fact have a person living next door to these people that actually had a family of groundhogs removed just a month or so ago. I was wrong on all accounts.
Down in the box was a nest ever so conveniently placed in an old black ash tray with 3 baby birds. My best guess is they were robins. The story animal control was told before I approached was I was responsible for the mess since I have air rifles. He kindly informed them unless they had video of me doing something that everything was hearsay, but also felt the need to tell me that shooting pest birds was animal cruelty since it was a popular issue that it would probably make the news. Of course I explained to him the most I do these days in the city limits is use my 1377 pistol with no pellets to scare the birds away, much like fire crackers would, and that anytime I do serious pesting its performed out in the county.
So yeah I've become 'that' guy in the neighborhood. Never mind the neighbors and the children that label me 'cruel', or 'mean' while they completely tossed a cat out to be a stray once their kids got over the 'new pet' feeling. The poor thing has since adapted to being a community cat since a neighbor much further down the street and my parents have taken up feeding the non-ferals. Also never mind the fact that the children who should know way better than to pick up baby birds by now did more damage to the poor creatures by moving them than leaving them.
I apologize if this this whole thing seems out of place and more like a rant, but I imagine there have been more than a few of us who have had something like this happen to them, and honestly I'd like to know how everyone else handled things.
