The Return Of The Birds

Some readers laughed at me when I posted about last summer’s magpie trouble. Because HA HA! Nothing is funnier than crazy filthy birds dive-bombing that girl from the Internet! Look at her run! My favorite part is her dog cowering on the couch!

Laugh all you want. I can take it. I’m the one who has to live with the memory of this following me around my house and screaming in all my windows:



I bring this up again because I came home from Valdez yesterday to learn that a young magpie had taken its first steps out of the nest and right into my woodpile. Because apparently my backyard is the very best place in all of downtown Anchorage for adolescent scavenger birds to make their society debuts. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NATURE?

So it was that I found myself on the phone this morning with wildlife biologist and local hero Rick Sinnott. I introduced myself by mentioning that he’d come to my house last summer to try to help me with a magpie problem.

“I remember,” he said. “Are they hitting you again?”

(Side Note: Hear that, haters? The state’s top wildlife biologist, who responds to thousands of calls a year, who has been CHARGED BY BEARS and SHOT IN THE LEG, found my magpie problem memorable. WHO’S CRIPPLED BY FEAR NOW, HUH?)

“I can run faster this year than I could last year,” I said.

I filled him in on the details and crossed my fingers, hoping he had, in the past year, toiled away in his secret laboratory and invented some kind of magical magpie repellent technique. Maybe just a spray or something.

No such luck. Unless the whole nest can be moved, there’s not much that can be done for me, Sinnott said. Even if he moved the baby a few blocks away, say near the railroad tracks, there might be more, and then the family would be split up, which wouldn’t solve any problems with the angry parents. Then he told me he did have one suggestion, but I had to promise not to laugh.

“Do you have a wide-brimmed hat?” he asked.

Because, you see, his concern is that a rabid disgusting adult magpie with murder in its overprotective heart is going to swoop down and peck me in the eye. And apparently, wearing a wide-brimmed hat will help protect me from this.

“I mean, I’ve had them land on my shoulders and peck at my head,” he said.

I told him I’ve been using an umbrella. He said that should work too.

The good news is that eventually baby magpies learn to fly. The bad news is that it might take a week. And then there might be more. I told him I was going to have to start letting the dog out at some point, but I’d wait until the little bastard could fly well enough to get out of her way.

“Well, I’d hate for your dog to kill a bird,” he said, “but it does happen, so don’t beat yourself up about it if it does.” I didn’t mention that the dog, whose vacation at my brother’s was extended when I found out Mommie Dearest was back, will likely bury herself under the covers in terror after one good drubbing from one of the parents.

I still fail to understand why any magpie would choose to bring young magpies into the world in a yard it knows to contain a large, active dog, but I suppose it helps that these magpies seem to know that we’re completely terrified of them. And as much as I enjoy my backyard, I like my eyes too much to try to cross these particular squatters.

Sinnott thanked me for “having a sense of humor” about the situation, and he did have one request. Apparently there’s a new guy in the department who hasn’t worked with Alaskan magpies before.

“If we don’t have too many moose and bears to deal with today, do you mind if he comes over and lets magpies fly at him?” he asked. “We can at least try to tire them out for you.”

Be my guest, I said. Someone should be able to make lemonade from my magpies.

The Birds And The Bears

You know you live in urban Alaska when your hometown hires a cop to deal with bears.

I’m all for the bear cop; I mean, I live in downtown Anchorage so I don’t have to deal with bears, and yet a black bear was sighted on my block (and apparently, on one occasion, in my front yard), which leaves me feeling a little unsettled (and put an end to my practice of leaving the dog outside in the backyard on nice summer days while I go to work). But what I’d really like to know is: Where is the magpie cop?

Yeah, I know, a bear is probably scarier-sounding than a bird. But you wouldn’t say that if you’d been dive-bombed by nesting magpies in your own yard and trapped inside your house while birds followed you from window to window, perching outside and peering in to screech at you while you and your terrified dog huddled on the other side of the glass, shaking in fright. I actually had to call Fish & Game last spring after the dog and I were held prisoner inside the house for a full day and night. The legendary Rick Sinnott himself came to my house and looked around for the nest (his theory was that there were young magpies involved, and I did spot one in my woodpile a few days later. As I ran from the house to the garage. With my raincoat hood pulled up over my head and an umbrella held low around my shoulders. On a perfectly dry sunny day. To protect myself from the attacking magpie parents. Who clearly wanted to peck my eyes out), but wasn’t able to fix my rabid bird problem. The dog refused to go outside for days. I had to drag her out the front door and all the way around the block — the long way — to the Park Strip just so she could relieve herself.

I have never been trapped inside my house by angry bears.

So, for the record, I’d just like to say that, while I appreciate the idea of a bear cop, if it’s just the same to you, Municipality, I’d much rather have a magpie cop. That’s something I could actually see improving my quality of life.