About 7 months ago I posted about My New Guard Bird which I named Spur. In hindsight Spur was actually 2 adult birds and they had hatched a couple of chicks on the vacant block next door. It was good for my kids to see the cute chicks and the family that protected them while they grew up. The chicks eventually moved on so it was all good. We’ve always had Spur Winged Plovers around and they can get a bit noisy but you get used to them, as long as they don’t get aggressive…
A week or so ago these birds had seemed to set up on our front lawn again and started getting all uppity at my kids as they headed to and from school. At first I thought the season was wrong because it was only 7 months ago they last hatched chicks, but eventually I decided something was up and went searching through our front lawn looking for eggs or chicks...but came up with nothing. So I thought I could just shoo them off and be done.
The block next door isn’t vacant any more because they are currently building a house there and I eventually discovered that the birds made a nest in OUR back yard this time. After a week or so of rain we hadn’t been out there, but yesterday I found the eggs. I had to go out there with a rake in hand to fight them off because they started swooping me pretty intently as I got close. Even taking this photo was a challenge holding the camera in one hand and fighting them off with the other...and I took it from 10 meters away!
So now I’m kinda pissed off. I do like to co-exist with nature, but I need to mow that lawn and my own kids also need a yard to play in. If I mow now then I’ll squish the eggs and even if I try and mow around the nest they will probably go berserk on me. Stupid birds. So I’m sacking Spur as my Guard Bird and trying to figure out what to do about this nest. One thing for sure is I need to make sure they don’t try and pull this stunt on me again because Spur has definitely outstayed his welcome here this time.
