I should have known. Things were humming along much too smoothly at the feeders this winter. There were no pests or marauders in sight. Then in the midst of the latest snowstorm, they arrived.
Just as there is no such thing as a unicorn (sorry if I ruined your day), there is also no such thing as “just one” European Starling. They may send out a scout to find out what you’re serving for supper, but that’s the last time you’ll see only one. In mere moments your feeders will be inundated with scores of the pesky birds. They can empty a feeder in no time.
Other than squirrels, no critter makes me crazier. The birds are easy to scare off, but they are also undaunted. The second you turn your head, they reappear. When they are in my yard I can’t get anything done because I’m constantly whipping around from my work to see if I need to startle them from the feeders again. I flail about in the window, I yell, I knock on the glass. It only works for a few moments.
I almost went outside and took down the feeders during the storm, but there were so many other birds snatching seeds that I didn’t have the heart.
Once a flock has added your backyard to the “restaurant tour”, you are usually doomed for the foreseeable future. In this case I may have dodged a bullet. Once the snow subsided, the birds miraculously vanished. Now if I could just get rid of my nervous, head-turning twitch, things would really be back to normal.