If you’ve ever checked my twitter stream in the morning you will generally find strongly worded tweets directed towards Canadian Geese. They range from me demanding Canada reclaim their damn geese and send more awesome Canadian delecacies like poutine and Wunderbars to factoids like, DID YOU KNOW GEESE POOP EVERY SIX MINUTES?
With the honking and the HONK HONK and their occasional Jersey Shore reenactment with two geese on the roof (which ZOMG if you’ve never been woken up to geese slapping their feet and honking on the roof RIGHT. ABOVE. your head I can tell you that being woken up to a pile drive from a five year old is welcome respite) and two geese on the ground right outside my open bedroom window honking at each other for no apparent reason other than make me stabby.
HONK! slap slap slap HONK! on and on until one finally gives up and flies away.
Then there’s my backyard.
Look, birds singing is all charming and stuff. I even spent money on a machine that simulated the sounds of birds twittering in the breeze. But to have a real live show every morning beginning around five when it isn’t even light out? Makes me all crazy eyed with an itchy trigger finger.
Even the geese have the common decency to shut it until it’s light out.
They have all these songs! and the tweets! and the CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP! Each brand of bird trying to claim its individuality with it’s sweet blasted song. It’s nine o’clock at night and they still haven’t stopped. People always say they wish they had the stamina and energy of Addie, please. Give me the stamina and energy of that woodpecker back there and I’d have cancer cured and all your laundry done before I even had my morning pee.
To make matters worse (or better if you’re one of those ‘I love baby birds’ type) there’s all these baby birds around. There’s a huge group of them right above the light fixture in my closet, which is alternately cute and alarming. I also have a hard time keeping the cynicism to myself when I see the mom bird trying to fly all stealth, doing a total Jason Bourne look see, before heading under the eave of my house. I KNOW YOU’RE THERE BIRD.
After a really bad windstorm last week Cody found a bird in our yard who had surely been blown right into the side of our house, he said the thing looked shocked, pissed and dead all at the same time.
What a crummy way to go.
We were afraid it was the mom bird to the attic family chirp, but don’t worry, IT WASN’T.
Then there’s the baby geese/ducks that cross the road. I never noticed geese meandering across the road before, maybe it’s because they knew they didn’t have a chance against the bumper of my Chrysler. But now that they’re parents they parade their babies across four lane roads knowing that any decent human being wouldn’t mow them down.
Cody swears a dad goose bringing up the rear of his brood this afternoon turned and flipped him off for not coming to a complete stop.
Those baby geese are going to grow up and become the gigantic geese that wake me from a dead sleep with their honk honking and slap slapping of their big goofy feet on my roof. And yet, aww, they’re so widdle and cuuuute.
I really need to rethink my decent human being status.
Canada, take your geese back. Please.
Also? The one bird I can never manage to get mad at? Cardinals.
Cardinals are awesome.
Take note GEESE.
making unbreakable - formerly moosh in indy. 
I like to eat birds.
In order of preference or at least frequency:
1. Chicken
2. Turkey
3. Duck
I do not eat cows, sheep/lamb and the like, but birds? Birds are ugly.
Except hummingbirds. Those are made of awesome.
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@VDog, I second that hummingbirds are made of pure awesome.
Plus? They’re SO QUIET!
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@Casey,
Hummingbirds, very cute and great to watch. Also, Vicious with a capital V. My SIL has a bunch of feeders around her patio and the little things will dive bomb you and each other to get their feeding spot. Yet, still they are awesome.
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I have no doubt that Father Goose flipped Cody “the bird” (if you will) – geese are mean. And totally grabby – every time we go to the lake to feed the ducks, the geese try to steal the bread straight from our hands. Then I find myself telling geese to back off, then I realize I’m talking to birds, then we have to go. Anyway, back to my point – Geese are mean!
Sorry you have this going on. Hoping more cardinals than geese come your way.
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We have a large number of those same geese down here in SWFL during the winter. There are mean and have chased me and my 2yo in a parking lot. The one where I work and would be everyday. They would stalk us for food b/c some of the bird lovers would feed the friggin’ things. NOT COOL.
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I dunno, I don’t like Cardinals very much when they play my Mets. Just saying…
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You know, I took pictures of those same friggin’ geese and their adorable babies a few weeks ago. They’re not so cute anymore. They poop all over the place and, like you said, oh, the honking. Please, for the love of all that is holy, please stop with the honking.
Also, did you know geese hiss if you get to close? And they also sit on the roof and honk extra loudly at the dog who is just trying to do her business, thank you very much, not trying to eat your babies.
But let’s not even talk about the cursed mourning doves. You know, the ones that sit on the peak of the roof and coo loudly? At 4:30 in the morning? Oh, I hate them.
This week, Indianapolis, I hate you and your damned birds!
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The other day, two birds slammed into my front window as I sat by it reading a book. Two! One I could probably dismiss as unfortunate flying, but two makes me think I was being given a sign of impending doom.
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I agree. Geese are big honking jerks.
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I missed your writing.
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Do those fake plastic owls work for scaring off geese, or does that only work for pigeons? If not, bb guns work. (I’m kidding, sort of) 😉
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This was a good post–it was good to “hear” your voice again. Praying for you.
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Oooooh, I hate a damn goose! Everything they do looks like they are mocking you! GAH. Very much on your side here. If you do decide to bust a cap in one, please make sure there is video footage.
(We in the south say “pop a cap.” Did not realize that was a regional thang. Blogging is so educational sometimes!)
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I think you should round up some redneck neighbors with assorted weaponry and let them go to town. (And if you don’t have any redneck neighbors, I’d be GLAD to loan you some… and they’d be thrilled to help, I’m sure!)
As for the birds flying up under the eaves of your house… o holy jeebus. Makes me want to cry just thinking about it.
I hate birds. (Except hummingbirds and cardinals and probably those little tiny harmless brown ones.)
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See, here they’re just call “shit monsters”. It’s the rest of the world that blames us by calling them Canadian.
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i can picture you with your gun and scope shooting birds and addie yelling at you to stop. ;0)
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Cardinals are the state bird of… you guessed it! OH-IO!
And seriously on the baby animal cuteness. Till they grow up that is.
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I like birds only when they keep quiet until it is light out side. I LOVE my sleep!
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We are trying to get rid of them too — a columnist in the paper today suggested that we should encourage our neighbours to the south (ie you guys) to do more hunting.
Some of them no longer fly south for the winter — that’s how brass they are! Do you think the border that some US gov’t want in place will keep them on one side of the border? (I’m hoping so — and I hope the border goes up once they have flown south for the winter :)))
K
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UGH!!! reading this brought me back to when i was a teenager and living in chicago. GEESE ARE OF THE DEVIL!!! the honking is so obnoxious and it’s as though the geese know they are annoying the ever living crap out of you, so they gather more of their idiotic spawn and honk in unison.
i’m not bitter or anything.
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Hahaha, have you read Avitable’s blog lately? Looks like the geese are out to drive you both insane.
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your geese are my sirens. LOOOOVE getting woken up by sirens.
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you think that’s bad? Rent a home where every spring the farmer decides to use that pasture RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW to wean about 100 mom cows and their babies. Nonstop mooing for DAYS.
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AH HA HA HA! Welcome to being a Hoosier. I read some of the comments about loud animals, etc, as well as your post. Those are sounds I can’t live without in life! Y’all must be city kids!
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The crows, they are loud too. They are loud early in the morning. Caw, caw, caw.
Woodpeckers can be a problem as well. Especially when they decide they want something out of your wood siding. knock, knock, knock…knock, knock, knock…and on and on and on.
Then the crows will start pecking at the shiney,whirly thing on the roof(what is that, some kind of vent) bang, bang, bang…bang, bang, bang.
Then the geese fly home. Honk, honk, honk, honk.
There is also the fact that it starts to get light here in the summer at 3:30am. That’s when all the nice little birds start to wake up. The birds that are nice to listen to later in the day while you sit next to an open window with a cup of tea. Not so nice at 3:30am.
Then the little stabbing hummingbirds I mentioned in a previous post.
Now I wonder why birds always seem so lovely.
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Geese are bad enough but if you really want the crap scared out of you, run into a turkey vulture on your way to the store.
Why are cardinals so nice and blue jays SOBs? They look like cousins.
I like robins, because I am from Robbinsdale, and our football team was the mighty Robins.
Finches are cute.
You are funny.
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I feel your pain. Woodpeckers put holes in the side of our house EVERY DAMN YEAR. And this year, we ended up inadvertently causing the murder of baby robins who were living inside the woodpecker holes when we hired someone to come fix the siding again.
And the geese. Oh, the geese. I worry about them constantly because they don’t have the sense to stay out of the road. Today, there were two just sitting and relaxing right at the edge of a lane on a very busy road. There was a HUGE field right behind them, but oh no, they had to sit in the road.
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Thank you for making me laugh out loud!!! I totally hear you on the birds twittering before it’s even light out. Is it not bad enough that my older son is now getting up with the sun… after I just went back to sleep from nursing the baby… no, the birds have a little conference right outside my window. Sheesh! And I thought we were getting away from this when we moved – way less bushes in the yard outside, but no, they must have followed us. Dang birds!
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I love this post! I am telling you – I am like 99% sure that a goose recently flicked me off, too!
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My son didn’t learn “stupid geese” from watching it on TV. I’m afraid, I’m responsible for that one.
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