The first few years we lived here it was fascinating watching the birds build their nests on our porch and raise babies and send them off into grown-up bird-dom. After 5 years it’s just a pain to keep the porch clean. Birds are messy.
I’m people, so I think like people. To keep the birds away this year I reasoned with them. I put a brick where they always build the nest, to convince them to move on, this isn’t the place for you. The brick says, look, this is going to be too much trouble.
They started to build the nest next to the brick.
Then you try to change their “want to.” A friend suggested rubber snakes or an owl. Of course! Genius! No bird is going to make a home where the kids are going to be snatched away by predators, right? Rubber snakes are a buck at Walmart, a plastic owl eight bucks. I got both; even put the snakes right on the ledge where they build the nest.
It worked for awhile. Then one day I saw the beginnings of a new nest – right on top of the snake's head.
The last resort is to make it impossible to carry out your desire. I built a barrier – a physical barrier using vinyl guttering to cover every spot where birds could land. It’s like grounding the kids for life – let’s see you get in trouble now! It doesn’t matter how much they want to or how hard they try. They can’t – there’s nowhere to land. They’d have to build a nest that floats in the air.
You don’t reason with animals, and their “want to” is hard-wired. You can’t change instinct. That’s why we have fences and cages and vinyl barriers on the front porch.
Reasoning and motivating are for the higher creatures like us.
Except when it doesn’t work.
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you – Psalm 32.9
A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools – Proverbs 26.3
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