Morning Adventure

[firstfrost]

I am sitting at the dowstairs kitchen table reading the newspaper and waiting for twe. There is a tapping noise from the pantry. Tap tap tap rustle rustle. Tick tap tick tick. After a couple of attempts to sneak up on the noise which cause it to stop, I finally arrive in the pantry when the noise is still going on from the window, where the dryer exhausts. Looking out the window, there are a few wisps of grass sticking out of the vent, and a very cheerful-looking sparrow fussing with them. He sits down, surveying the back alley from his cozy hole.

I call harrock over. Look! A sparrow is building a nest in the dryer vent! We agree that the sparrow is adorable, but probably should not be encouraged to stay there. We push the dryer button briefly. He ruffles but stays put. We turn the dryer on for about twenty seconds. He decides this is too much, and jumps out. Now, we can hear a very irate sparrow: "Cheep! CHEEPCHEEP KEKEKEKEKEKEKEK CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP!" I don't speak bird, but it's clear he's really furious at what he sees as a breach of contract with the landlord ("This sort of thing should be covered up front in the lease, if there's going to be exhaust!")

I go outside to look. He's nowhere to be found, but tirinian does wander by to wonder why I'm standing in the alley staring at the side of the building. I explain the sparrow, with much descriptive waving of my wings and cheeping. He says I'm mocking the sparrow's pain. Well, I probably am. Still, the couple of grasses should probably go, lest they be a fire hazard.

Back inside, to pull the dryer vent out of the window, and realize that the couple grasses sticking out are but the visible tip of the Huge Two-Room Townhouse that the sparrow has built in the dryer vent. It looks extraordinarily comfortable, if I were a bird, with grass lining the vent for about a foot and a half. I spend five minutes pulling grass out of the tube, evicting the bird. Happily, there are no eggs, or I would have felt much more guilty.

But the sparrow is definitely going to have words with the real estate agent who set him up with his place, maybe threaten a lawsuit. This was not a bird to just mildly find a new spot.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

I am *so* sorry I missed this :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I'm particularly amused by the idea of you having your peaceful grey morning just ten feet above my head as I was having a Mad Adventure with Birds, but there were a good number of hours between them.

But I can still pretend. :)

[bluepapercup]

Hey, who knows, maybe our house has three alternate universes in it, connected by the stairway or transworld travel?

[visage.livejournal.com]

"Who Knows?"

That's suggesting there's some alternate explanation for it...

[mijven.livejournal.com]

So was the bird just terribly efficient at construction, or is this a comment on how often the dryer gets used? (Perhaps you hang all your clothes out to dry now that the weather - pretty thunderstorms notwithstanding - is nice.)

Have you heard our chipmunk down the dryer vent/tube stories from our last rental? The one who chewed his way out (plastic tube) snuck up to the kitchen, and freaked both of us out (me and the chipmunk that is) trying to escape! He even had his own cheering section - or panicking relative - another munk clinging to the screen window chittering away while fxz and I ineffectively tried to herd our uninvited guest towards the exit.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think the dryer has probably been being used for some time with a nest in it; the grass was like a round grass liner for the tube, and probably somewhat porous. Maybe it was a heated nest over the winter.

(From his reaction, you'd think he had never had the dryer run on him before, but I think it must be that he wasn't used to it in the morning).

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Yes. It was not that I was mocking laundry issues (as I have too many of my own to mock others') just that if 20 seconds was enough to disgruntle him, I didn't understand how he had stayed long enough to build the second story.

So it must be as you say. Cosy warm when the temperature outside was beginning to fall (or when he wasn't around to object) was one thing. Seering warmth when the day is just beginning to get that way itself (or perhaps never cooled down from the storm's humidity) is another thing entirely. Explains his long complain session - he was making the distinction.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Part of the disconnect is that the bird's reaction comes from the part in the story where we think he's just starting, with his three pieces of grass, so he *could* have just noticed the dryer. :)

On the other hand, maybe he was just a bird curmudgeon. Like a tenant below, pounding on the ceiling when the music gets too loud and cursing out "those damn kids" - every time the dryer goes on he loses his temper about it.

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

A bird built a nest inside my air conditioner in VA once. It was a real lose-lose proposition. The bird died, the air conditioner died, everybody died.