Graham Chapman Keeps the Birds Away (Ammended)

So, remember how NY squirrels are evil? Yeah, the birds here are way worse. Birds are the devil. I'm not even referring to just pigeons, either, (don't even get me started on those little bastards, that's a whole other blog in itself) I'm talking about those damned little sparrow things. Those little shit-bags fear no man!

Holy crap! I just googled sparrows to make sure I was talking about the right bird. Did you know there are over 40 species of sparrow?! *shudder*
(BeeTeeDubs, I have a slight fear of birds. They have dead soulless eyes.)


Anywho, We had a fairly mild winter in NYC this year, but in comparison to last year, I think only the second ice age itself could have been worse (not the movie, the actual ice age...although the movie was pretty bad.) In the past couple of weeks, the weather has sort of been showing signs of springtime (you know, like actually seeing the sun). Because of the slight rise in temperature, the birds in our courtyard have decided that it's officially spring and time for them to chirp chirp away starting at 6am every day.
Fine. You do that birds. You chirpy chirp chirp.

There is one ornery fat little sparrow whom I have nicknamed Rosemary's Budgie. EVERY morning for the past couple of weeks, he lands on our window sill next to the ghetto cardboard patch in the A/C unit and screeches his little birdie brains out over and over and over. At 6am, this is not acceptable behavior. Every morning, I will crawl out of bed (since I'm closest to the window) and bang on the glass and the A/C unit to shut him up. He will stay silent for the exact amount of time it takes me to stumble back into bed, pull on the covers and get comfy again. Then it's back to "SPREKEH SPREKEH!" (That's as onomatopoeia-y as I can get) Finally I will leap out of bed, pull back the light-blocking curtain, scalding my retinas in the process, I shove my face onto the window pane and bang on it. Rosemary's Budgie now knows I mean business and he darts away over to our fire escape and stares indignantly at me with his inky soulless eyeballs.
Once I put the curtain back in place and get all warm in cozy in my bed, I slowly drift back to sleep...for a whole 15 minutes and then I have to get up for work. Stupid bird.

Ever since the squirrel incident, I've been telling Boyfriend we need a wooden owl statue to put on the window to scare the critters away, for their own safety, otherwise I might snap and decide to teach myself taxidermy with the critters in the courtyard as my practice specimens. He sort of chuckled at me and gave me a patronizing "Ok." But, since Rosemary's Budgie wakes him up in the morning too (and apparently comes back to screech at the window after I've left for work) Boyfriend got more serious about my wooden owl proposal.

But then I started thinking. I hate owls. They're fascinating in an I'll-watch-it-on-Discovery-Channel-if-there's-nothing-else-on sort of way but they scare the Bejeebus out of me in the the-only-reason-the-movie-The-Forth-Kind-was-scary-was-because-they-kept-showing-that-damn-barn-owl-all-the-time sort of way. Because of this, I realized I don't want a life-sized wooden owl on my window sill, if we did every time I open my curtain, I would have an anxiety attack. So, I suggested we print out a picture of an owl and tape it to the window, that way I don't have to look at it.
 

But you know what? Boyfriend had a better idea:

The weirdest part about this, is it freaking works!!! No Rosemary's Budgie for almost a week now. Crazy.
Thank you, A Liar's Autobiography panel at NYCC 2011, we now have a scare-graham.

Ammendment: I would like to clarify that not all birds are the devil. Penguins, you are reprieved of the title. You are adorable. I can't be afraid of something so cute and affectionate:




"It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry."
-Joe Moore