Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Dear Splendid Fairy-wrens

I love you, you are the cutest little birds, and the iridescent plumage on the male has to be seen to be believed.

But would you PLEASE stop fighting the reflection of yourselves in my windows. It used to be just one bird then two and only the kitchen window and back sliding doors, but now it’s EVERY. DAMNED. WINDOW. in the house. And there are more of you this year (yes, you’ve been doing this for several years now—I think you’ve trained your kids too!). You do this for hours on end (starting just before dawn), pooping nearly every time. It must be exhausting for your tiny little bodies—you’d be better off saving your energy for feeding, breeding, and rearing your young ones.

And you don’t want to know how hard it is to get your poop off the rough brick window ledges, the windows themselves, the flyscreens, and the concrete pad around the house. Or how annoying it is to hear ‘tap tap tap’ continuously for 12 hours a day.

Yours, annoyed home owner who loves wrens, but hates the constant tapping as you fight your reflection.

PS: You’re really cute… until you’re not.

PPS: Time to bring out the ‘owl eyes’ (I have a photo of some large owl eyes that I print off and laminate and put on the windows—it seems to keep the wrens at bay, but this year I might have to make lots of copies and put them on every window).