B is for BIRD

I once owned an owl. It used to perch just above the front door with a fierce scowl on its face and two eyes constantly staring into the distance. All day it just sat there and never moved and never made a hoot of a sound. It couldn't, for I had fixed it firmly with a large nail, hammered through its plastic body, to the wooden fascia board just below the roof. I had bought it in one of those do-it-yourself stores with the promise that it would scare away prospective feathered intruders from building under the tiles. It didn't! I'm not sure why I ever thought it would for I reckon a sparrow clinging to the wing of a low flying fighter jet would have spotted it as a fake. After all, it never spoke, never moved, reflected the sun's rays off its shiny plastic and sometimes hung upside down or spun like a cartwheel when the wind blew too strong.

Anyway the birds kept on building. Often the only sign that a new home was being erected was the odd dropped twig or few pieces of straw or dried grass that appeared on the ground below. I decided action was required since none of the new dwellers were offering to contribute to the mortgage and thought that it would be best if they were evicted before the their children came along and grannies and grandas came to visit for the weekend. They worked all hours and sometimes the noise at night was deafening as they lined their sitting room with a new load of material that had just been flown in. I began with the nest most accessible by ladder, pushing the tiles upwards to reveal the interior, a bit like peering into a doll's house by lifting off the roof. It took two full buckets of straw / twigs / hay to clear it and decided in true Mastermind that I'd started so I'd finish. The other nest was more difficult to reach but eventually it was also served with an eviction order and all was quiet again. For a week or two! More debris on the ground was the evidence, but it had also appeared in one or two new places, which was most disconcerting. I didn't tackle the problem immediately this time, due to the pressure of other commitments and then one day I noticed that the birds were no longer carrying twigs but worms and the nest had suddenly begun to make chirping noises!

It was too late to do anything now and I set about devising a plan to discourage them from returning after their children had 'flown the nest' so to speak. I thought of throwing things at them, hosing their nests with water, though this might have had serious repercussions for our ceilings. I even considered a catapult and a pellet gun. To make matters worse, they hadn't considered the need for an inside toilet and were quite happy to use the walls and windows at the front of the house, giving a new meaning to the phrase 'pebble dashed'. Often they would hold all night parties in the nest just above our bedroom and on at least one occasion I had to tap the ceiling quite hard to remind them that the landlord was trying to sleep. But the biggest annoyance of all was when they or their friends chose to perch, bottoms out, on the top of the gable end, just above our glass-roofed conservatory. I think it's enough to say that I learned most of them were pretty fond of blackberries! As for the owl, he frowned all the way to the rubbish bin. On other visits to the DIY stores, I've seen some of his relatives preying on unsuspecting customers and have been tempted to unladen some of my dissatisfaction on them but they all seem so unhappy, with that same frown, that I haven't the heart to deny them a little bit of fresh air. The real birds have been back all year, reared their families and gone off for their winter holidays and I can't even get a day to Portrush!

Jesus says. 'Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?' I guess that's the lesson my feathered friends teach me, that my Father will meet my needs and will care for me because I am valuable to Him. In fact I am His child, part of His extended family. But I reckon my plastic friend had a message too for when Jesus is truly real to you, it shows - in your face, in your words and in your actions. And anyway, He knows His own.. Doesn't that ruffle your feathers just a little bit?