To Kill a Mocking Bird

The other day I killed a bird.

Well, almost! I was just working on it’s tail feathers when Buddy gave me away with his excited wagging. Buddy is funny that way. Anything worth investigating or chasing, he would either dig/sniff/jump with a noisy ‘wuff’ or just dash off after whatever letting the whole world know he is on the hunt. Words like ‘stealth’ and ‘stalking’ simply do not exist in his dictionary. Silly boy!

Anyway, there I was silently working the tail feathers of this baby pigeon (that probably had fallen down from it’s little nest on the rain gutter of our eastern side balcony) I had managed to chase into our living room and under the sofa that Buddy suddenly happened to smell it.

I knew he would give the entire game away and so I had made sure I was behind the sofa farthest from the dinning area (where you are most likely to find Buddy at any given time of the day!) But guess you can’t deceive a labrador’s nose.

Mummy noticed him and Ginger wagging away ever so noisily and Ginger even trying to dig her way through the concrete living room floor to get behind the sofa.

 

Sigh!

What followed is just so disappointing.

The sofa was pulled away from the wall, Mummy’s shriek brought Daddy running, the bird was unceremoniously snatched away and I was called ‘a BAD dog’.

 

I, Shadow a BAD DOG?

Why, I was just trying to keep our home clear of those mocking birds that marks our balconies, soil our potted garden, leave marks on the parapets and generally invade our perimeter.

 

This isn’t fair at all.

It was the birds that started this war. I mean, look. We lounge out there in the balcony enjoying the fresh air after a nice cooling bath and these birds fly into our airspace and refuse to leave. They sit there, high up on the awnings and rain-gutters and persistently mock us day after day.

 

 

 

 

Buddy and Ginger no longer requests them to leave. Sometimes I think they are right. We are just wasting our woof anyway.

But I just can’t help myself.

That is the reason I was so very excited that day when I saw this book on Mummy’s kindle.

 

 

So Mummy has some agenda now to rid us of those persistent pests. But turns out this book doesn’t have step by step instructions on how to rid one of a mocking bird like I had thought. In fact it has nothing at all to do with birdies. What a misleading title!

It really can’t be my fault then that I had drawn inspiration from this book and decided to take the matter of the invading pigeons into my own paws.

Anyway, that birdie survived. Mummy dressed up it’s wounds and settled it on the parapet outside. It sat there very still for nearly an hour. It must have been stunned after it’s near death experience. But then, after what seemed like an eternity, it fluffed up it’s feathers as if to test them and then slowly took off. Mummy was very worried it would fall down to it’s death from our fourth floor home but she needn’t have worried.

A bird is a bird and I guess it never forgets how to fly, tail feathers or no tail feathers…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The birdies still come and sit up there on the awnings for ages and I still ask them everyday to leave us alone. Mummy tells me I am a ‘GOOD BOY’ for trying to chase them away. None of them have fallen down ever since the incident with that particular birdie but one question still bothers me.

 

‘To kill or not to kill a mocking bird, that is the question’.

 

Confused,

Shadow

 

 

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